Highly Figured Chico California Walnut
While in Chico, California for the wedding of my sister, Kelly, I went out on the outskirts of town with Tim, my father Steve, and my uncle Don to a local seller of walnut timber. Chico has historically been an area where lots of nut trees are grown, including walnuts, for both commercial and ornamental purposes. As the trees age and become unproductive, or when homeowners wish to remove them for one reason or another, it is this man and his son’s business to remove the trees, cut them into timber, largely for the gun stock trade, and sell them. Occasionally, a walnut tree will prove to contain some pieces that have especially heavy and attractive figure and grain and these pieces will, of course, command a premium price. We purchased quite a few pieces of walnut timber and I kept several of the pieces for air drying before attempting to turn them.
Surprising Figure
This small piece, about 5 inches across by about 2 inches deep, was the first of these pieces I have turned. I could see long before I even started to turn it that it had excellent figure, but when I did a bit of round turning, I was surprised to see a distinctive flame, or tiger stripe, pattern which I usually associate with maple. I didn’t know that walnut could have such figure, but there it was.
Turning Walnut
Walnut is comparatively soft, much softer than the last wood I worked with which was maple, so it tends towards the dusty side when turning. I also usually find that the end grain tear out is much worse in walnut than with most any other wood, but by using patient light cuts with the Easy Wood Tools Easy Rougher, I was able to cut most of the end grain tear out away once the hogging cuts were done, of which there was little since my father had done an excellent job of cutting it almost perfectly round on the band saw.
I chose to drill out some of the center using a forstner bit. This generates a fair amount of heat since the cut is going into the end grain, which is the hardest cut to make on any wood. However, this does give a much easier start to hollowing a bowl than simply cutting it out with traditional turning tools. Maybe it is cheating, but the result is the same in the end with considerably less effort expended. The bowl hollowed easily with the Easy Wood Tools Easy Finisher. I made careful and repeat measurements with the Robert Sorby calipers so that I was sure to achieve a consistent depth and side wall thickness.
Imperfect Is Perfection
I knew the piece wasn’t perfect when I started since I could see a rather substantial crack, or check, in one side of the block. I considered making that side the top, or the side to which I would attach the face plate and later hollow it out, since this would have the effect of cutting away most of the check, but since I couldn’t be certain how deep or significant the check would prove to be, I decided instead to make that side the bottom. I was concerned that if the check proved severe, being on the sidewall aspect of the bowl would render the entire piece unstable and perhaps cause the bowl to collapse when turning, or when reverse chucked for final finishing. In the end, the check was not severe, it did not extend far into the wood, and the piece had great structural integrity, but I couldn’t know this in the beginning. I did fill in some of the check with cyanoacrylate and sanding dust, as I also did with a few voids in the interior, but I left the check visible on the bottom since it was a natural feature of the wood. I like to leave wood natural, flaws and all, whenever possible since part of the beauty of the wood, to me at least, is the natural aspect of it, including imperfections. Plastic can be rendered perfect every time, but it still is plastic. Nature occasionally has flaws, and sometimes those are more beautiful than technical perfection.
Sanding and Finishing
Sometimes I have had nightmares with sanding walnut satiny smooth, especially since it has fairly open pores, but this piece sanded fairly easily and achieved a very nice smooth finish. I chose to use an oil based finish, in this case Watco Danish Oil, in natural color, since the open pores of walnut will readily absorb the oil and harden over time, providing a very nice finish and shine. I am concerned that the open pores of walnut would trap a wax product and remain unsightly as the wax wouldn’t necessarily be able to buff out evenly and consistently.
The striping and other figure remained readily visible and proved to be visible on the interior of the piece as well as on the outside once it was hollowed out. The piece is small but has high visual impact, beyond its relative size, due to the highly figured nature of the walnut wood. Walnut is often beautiful, but this highly figured piece is especially pleasing!