does all wood darken?

I turned a bird house out of an oily wood - name escapes me now - and my beloved put it on a shelf (not for birds) that caught an hour or so a day. It bleached and dried out and needed oiling to help it.

Might have been Cocobolo - but I can't recall - been 10-12 years ago. [ wood used for bearings ? ] Hum

Mart>>

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn
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The standard for wooden journal bearings in marine applications has been Lignum Vitae.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

Many thanks!

Curt Blood Hartford, CT

Reply to
dustyone

Walnut will lighten? Does that work the same way as cherry darkens? Make sure it gets sun exposure and leave it there to lighten up.

I have a walnut bowl that seems a bit dark and if all I have to do is put it by a southern exposed window, I'd like to see how light it gets.

Tanus

Reply to
Tanus

:>Pine, oak, maple, redwood, walnut darken with age.

: English walnut, maybe. Black walnut lightens.

So does French walnut. It can get close to a cream color (after a hundred years anyway).

-- Andy Barss

Reply to
Andrew Barss

Nah. The "Law of perverse statistics" applies. Whichever way you _don't_ want it to go is what it will actually do.

Reply to
Robert Bonomi

Not very...it gets redder (than fresh cut) with golden overtones.

Reply to
dadiOH

Yes

I don't think it will lighten quite as quickly as the cherry darkens in light exposure.

Reply to
Leon

Here is a link to a Japanese book (=93Wood and Cellulosic Chemistry=94 by David N.-S. Hon, Nobuo Shiraishi)

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to the book, there are many causes of discoloration: chemical, biological and physical. Results for light-induced discoloration is shown in Table 7 for 100 species of wood (but Google shows only part of the table) Positive numbers show woods that darken and negative numbers show woods that lighten.

According to the Table 7, American walnut should lighten, but window glass will block UV from sunlight, so it may take much longer than if left in full sunlight outdoors.

Reply to
Denis G.

Whoa, STOP. The UV content of sunlight on the Earth's surface is mostly UVA (the UVB and higher has mostly been absorbed by the atmosphere) and window glass unless it has a UV blocking coating on it is about 90 percent transparent to UVA.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Here is a link to a Japanese book (?Wood and Cellulosic Chemistry? by David N.-S. Hon, Nobuo Shiraishi)

formatting link
to the book, there are many causes of discoloration: chemical, biological and physical. Results for light-induced discoloration is shown in Table 7 for 100 species of wood (but Google shows only part of the table) Positive numbers show woods that darken and negative numbers show woods that lighten.

According to the Table 7, American walnut should lighten, but window glass will block UV from sunlight, so it may take much longer than if left in full sunlight outdoors.

That sounds very reasonable. Because I have never built any Walnut furniture that was to be left out side in direct sunlight I have not witnessed it fade "quickly". Cherry on OTOH will darken quickly. You better be cautious about setting any thing on a new piece of Cherry furniture that will block light as in as little as several weeks the wood will darken around the protected/covered spot.

Reply to
Leon

Yep ... and, as you know, every time you walk in my house you can see that the nice initial effect of inlaying walnut with cherry may not stand the test of time.

The walnut lightens and the cherry darkens, making the inlay almost disappear.

Reply to
Swingman

"Swingman" wrote

Next time, reverse the woods. Inlay cherry into the walnut. That should do the trick! Hindsight is 20/20. :-)

Reply to
Lee Michaels

You're right .. might as well be blind for the impact the effect has. :)

Reply to
Swingman

Stick it out side! IT IS NOT GOING TO RAIN. The Cherry will turn darker and the Walnut will lighten, then you will end up with the same result, except just the opposite. ;~(

Reply to
Leon

On 6/25/2009 7:56 AM Leon spake thus:

Just a question: why do you always capitalize Cherry and Walnut? They're not proper nouns, you know, and this ain't German.

Just curious.

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Around here proper respect is paid to JOAT'S wooddorking gods, which lurk in the two most elegant of hardwoods, way before any thought is given to frivolous pursuits like grammar ... besides, it insures wooddorkers cut only once after measuring only once.

Reply to
Swingman

On 6/27/2009 10:37 AM Swingman spake thus:

Hmm; dunno what JOAT is, but I'll find out soon enough.

And that's sure better than my usual "Damn--I cut it twice and it's

*still* too short!"
Reply to
David Nebenzahl

You don't name your boards??

I want to emphasize the particular wood.

Reply to
Leon

ROTFL! ...

LOL ... that'll do it, for sure!

Reply to
Swingman

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