close to walnut

[buckbeans]

I just finished a picture frame in walnut and I love working with this wood. It is a bit expensive though and was wondering what the next closest hardwood to walnut that is a little bit cheaper?

[Claude]

Even though this place is in VA, if you click on their price list, you can get a good idea of the relative value of the different woods...

Colonial Hardwoods

Claude

[Robson Valley]

buckbeans: what did you like best of all about walnut? Color, texture, figure/grain?
To me, walnut has an unmistakable appearance. Could you settle for second best?

[ajcoholic]

Well, being a third generation woodworker who has worked with a lot of various species, there is really nothing I can think of that would replace black walnut... Butternut is very similar in grain and appearance but lighter in weight and colour, and as expensive if not more so.

Walnut is indeed a beautiful wood, and nice to work with.

AJC

[buckbeans]

RV I use mostly mallet tools and like to whack away fast and furious after I get in mind the exact form I want to cut. Because of the low humidity in Arizona , I find most of the other commonly used carving woods like basswood and mahogany tend to become brittle and stringy and do not respond to my mallet and gouge like walnut does. The color of walnut of course is absolutely beautiful but it is the way the chips fly that most impresses me.
I like butternut but it is hard to get.

[Robson Valley]

Good answer bb. I, too, enjoy watching the big chips fly. I try to save some of that work for artisans' exhibitions. Stripping punky sapwood off a cedar log, the chips are 1.5" x 3" x 1/2-3/4" thick. With a 1" carpenter's chisel and a mallet, some pieces go 10-15 feet. Last September 24, Rivers Day, I had one bit go straight up and I caught it coming down. Pure luck.
I leave my western red cedar out in the weather = that's where it was when I hauled it out of a logging debris pile. Sometimes, I "see" things in cedar pieces, makes the carving part really simple.
I know I should try real hardwoods (maple/mahogany/walnut/birch) as opposed to aspen/poplar that I'm carving now for wood-cut printing. However, I look and look at my blocks of those species that I have and nothing at all comes to mind.

[jmischel]

buckbeans: you might try mesquite. You should be able to find plenty of it there in the Tucson area. I've not worked it with mallet tools, but I've found it quite carveable with a knife, provided it's either green, or many years dead. The stuff that's only a year or two old is very hard to work with a knife. Mallet tools might do okay, though.

I've found mesquite to be similar to black walnut in the way it carves. Of course, I'm in Austin, TX, so I don't have the lack of humidity problem that you mention.

I like the look of black walnut, but I absolutely love the look of mesquite. And, for me, it's free. There's no way I'll ever carve all the mesquite I can harvest in my own back yard. And if I need larger pieces, some friends have land with large dead trees who would be happy to let me take 'em out . . .

[buckbeans]

I have plenty of mesquite around here. Although they share some characteristics like the finish and hardness as walnut , to me they are not the same. Mesquite grain is less predictable and has a tendency to twist and turn. Also splinters and crumbles a lot more than walnut.

[Sharon of the Dell]

Buckbeans, try ebay for walnut. I got a pretty good deal not to long ago. Shipping isn't cheap, but if you can get in the last few minutes of an auction and nobody has bid, you can score pretty good.