Furniture Finishing
WALNUT (CIRCASSIAN, BLACK WALNUT, BUTTERNUT)
All species of walnut, including Mexican walnut and California walnut, are used in the manufacture of fine furniture. Black walnut is used mostly in the manufacture of furniture in the United States. Circassian walnut is used extensively in Europe because of its beautifully figured grain, but it is too expensive to be used in large quantities. Butternut is very scarce and not obtainable in commercial quantities.
Black walnut is very strong, especially as a post or beam, and is not excelled in this respect by any of the common cabinet woods. In hardness it is excelled only by birch and oak. This wood is straight grained, not liable to shrink, check, warp or swell after seasoning, and glues well. It takes a beautiful finish with stain or other materials.
The heart-wood is brown-to-chocolate in color and the sapwood is white, but as the sap-wood is very narrow, about one inch wide, there is very little waste in eliminating this part of the log. The pores are large in the annual rings and, if cut on a tangent, will show a coarse figure. The tangential cut is not so popular unless the wood is figured by twists or burls. Quartersawed walnut gives a more beautiful figure by alternate light and dark shades. Veneer is made from all cuttings but preferably from the knots, burls, forks and stumps to get the gnarled effects.
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