Anyone else love Walnut?

[TheEdge01]

Exhibition/Presentation Grade Turkish walnut:

I traded a custom rifle maker for his stock cutoffs. His rifles start at 15K, he doesn't use bad wood.

How about some Black walnut? A local guy brought me this knife to re handle for him. I used some black walnut I had left over from a shelving project in the living room. Got it at Home Depot.

Did you have it stabilized?

 

[Horsewright]

Did you have it stabilized?

No I haven't found any need to stabilize walnut although I know some folks do.

 

[000Robert]

Those are beautiful knives!

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks!

 

[afishhunter]

Walnut wood = "pretty", stable, and not super expensive. (Unless buying the whole tree. I hear one tree can sell for enough to cover 4 years full tuition at a "Ivy League" College/University, with as much as $20 to $30 dollars to spare)
(Vintage saying: "Plant a walnut tree when your kid is born. Sell it when he or she is ready for college. No student loans or second/third mortgage and/or grants needed.")

Walnut seeds = "yummy"

 

[Mr.Wizard]

Exhibition/Presentation Grade Turkish walnut:

How about some Black walnut? A local guy brought me this knife to re handle for him. I used some black walnut I had left over from a shelving project in the living room. Got it at Home Depot.

Why is the Turkish walnut more desirable? Both look nice to me.

 

[NPT]

While I'm not a fan of any wood as knife handles, (I like G10 & Micarta better), the one in the OP is pretty nice looking! As far as woodworking, I like walnut, sorta. It's become harder to find and more expensive in the last couple years, and even before that, I had a hard time getting enough similar looking pieces to not make a project look silly. If I could do that, I'd definitely use more of it.

 

[Barneycanoe]

Thanks for all your replies and pictures - some great looking handles. I put two coats of pure tung oil on mine and will see how that does.

Dave

 

[NBblades]

This is the most beautiful piece of walnut I have ever seen, and thankfully I have enough for at least 10 more decent size handles. In my country, walnut is probably the most common quality wood you can find. I've finished walnut handles with linseed oil, tung oil, lacquer and superglue.
Linseed oil really brings out the colour in walnut. I know that tung oil is more durable and resistant, but linseed oil is better looking after it's dried. These are just my findings, I am open to suggestions.
Edit: I don't know why the picture is not available, I am going to post another as soon as I can. You can see it here: https://imgur.com/tQTBQkC

 

[Barneycanoe]

So I did some filing and sandpapering to remove about 1/16" from each side of the handles, just enough to give me a slight flat on each side. Now I like it even better. Really solid in hand. Will see how it does on an upcoming two-week canoe trip.

 

[herisson]

This looks really good ! Walnut happens to be one of my favorite material for handle scales. It's not the best at mechanical resistance or aging under agression, so the stabilising stuff can really be considered.
These here under are turkish walnut burl and the third from the top is plain walnut :

This one is gunstock grade walnut (if you ask me, it's burl, too). Quite the looker...