does all wood darken?

The standard for wooden journal bearings in marine applications has been Lignum Vitae.

Lew

Many thanks!

Curt Blood Hartford, CT

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

:>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

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

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

Yes

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

"Swingman" wrote

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

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

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. ;~(

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.

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.

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

You don't name your boards??

I want to emphasize the particular wood.

ROTFL! ...

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