Walnut is dead.

[Soundthought]

IMO. When properly prepared, walnut can have a luster and depth of grain that's hard to beat.

The three dimensional effect is uncanny in the right cut.

I have several walnut peices that you could just about fall into.

It's a very compelling wood....

[WMcD]

Probably the salesman was trying to sell some speakers with a plastic finish.

I sort of agree that walnut veneer has been a bit overused, esthetically. OTOH, it may be that like so many other materials, it had the right combination of price and performance, ease of finishing. In the latter case, it looks great without a finish and looks even better with a little finish.

This may be bad in the long run. Our speakers have very little protection with the factory finish and this may account for the amount of damage we see on the second hand market.

I do wonder where all these walnut trees come from. Hopefully the market forces are are pushing more plantings. I.e. that it is a renewable resource.

Incidentally, I was walking to the grocery store over the weekend and there were some boxes of trash outside a brownstone being renovated here in ORD land. It has a dozen sticks of tongue and groove floor board. The stuff which is 3 inches wide and about 4 feet long. Wow. It was walnut. The next day it was gone. They're walking on walnut ?

On a related subject, I wonder about mahogany. It seems the farmers in South America find it easier to burn than to sell. I know there is a lot of furnature use. Still, I wonder.

Best,

Gil

[skonopa]

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On 9/22/2003 11:03:25 PM Audioreality wrote:

IMO. When properly prepared, walnut can have a luster and depth of grain that's hard to beat.

The three dimensional effect is uncanny in the right cut.

I have several walnut peices that you could just about fall into.

It's a very compelling wood....

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I definitly agree. Attached is a picture of a set of shelves I made many years ago as part of a 4-H woodshop project. It could probably use a coat of oil (I'll have to try Builder's advice and use boiled linseed oil). Walnut is a very nice wood that I still enjoy looking at. I wonder how difficult it would be to re-veneer the RF-7s in walnut .

[boomac]

Gil,

I met a guy about 15 years ago that bought a farm here in Wisconsin. He mainly bought it to hunt deer and turkey but he also planted several thousand black walnut trees. He figured his grandchildren would really have something by the time they were his age. He was/is probably right. A nice block of black walnut, used for making a gun stock, can cost between $300 and $1000.

BTW jerohm, that is one nice looking piece of wood.

[Klipschfoot]

You gotta go to the RF-5 and 7 to get real wood veneer. Why? If RF-35, 25, and 15 are "Reference," they should have reference wood veneer, not just black ash and vinyl fake cherry. Ask a cabinet builder and he will tell you that cherry is out of style. It's overdone. Everyone wanted cherry 10 to 15+ years ago. Now it's wood, any wood, and solid wood for cabinetry. It makes no difference, at times, whether solid wood is even practical or necessary. Consumers just want to boast that it's solid wood.

I think Klipsch would do well by reintroducing walnut in it's Reference line. I was looking to replace some vintage walnut KG-4 with Reference to "slimline" the profile. After doing some research, I will have to rethink Klipsch's offerings because I want real wood veneer and I am not interested in the size of RF-5 or 7 or spending top dollar for RB-75 when their primary use will be HT. Plastic just doesn't cut it for me. (Nor do foil cones, but that is on another post)

[HDBRbuilder]

Boomac, here is something to think about:

In the 1980's, the Gand Champion American Black Walnut tree was found to have walnut dieback, a disease foresters know little about, but is akin to dying of old age. It can occur at any time past the age of around 50 years for these trees, but seldom occurs before they are 90 years old. The tree was located in an old residential area in Indiana. A tree-removal expert was contracted to come in and remove the tree. He was paid $1,000 to do the job and got the tree in the deal. He promptly sold the butt-cut log (first ten feet of trunk) for $5,000 to a Japanese company, who promptly had the log picked-up and shipped by rail to the west coast where it was loaded on a ship headed for Japan, where it was cut into veneer 1/50th of an inch thick for panelling in Tokyo banks. He sold the stump, after removal to Rheinhardt-Fajan, the nation's premier maker of gunstocks and gunstock blanks, for another $5,000. The remainder of the log and a good many of the larger limbs with their crotch grained-wood, were sold to woodworkers around the country...making him another $2,000. Remember...this was in the 1980's!!

Somebody has 50 acres of bottomland that has sandy, well-drained soil...and is already covered in mixed hardwood forest. He takes a wheelbarrow or 4-wheeler with a trailer that is loaded up with black walnuts that have fallen from trees in the fall, but that he has put into a freezer for two days, then removed during the winter, because he is aware that if the nut is frozen once, it is much more likely to successfully germinate. Now it is late winter, and he is travelling around his 50 acres and taking one of these nuts and, using his boot heel, he is pushing it into the soil...about every 20 feet in a meandering fashion.

Walnut trees take 40 years to be viable for cutting, generally. So, 40 years later, his family goes out and cuts HALF of the walnuts that he planted on just ONE of those 50 acres. Figure about ten to twenty trees...with a value at cutting of between one to ten thousand dollars apiece (in today's dollars, and according to who it is sold to, and the quality of the tree for its lumber), including stump removal.

The next year, they do the same thing to a second acre...and so on...until another 50 years has passed. Now they are back at that first acre...and the ORIGINAL trees planted are 90 years old...they cut them and these trees are TWICE the size of the first ones they cut...an acre a year....for another 50 years...and so on...

Now, remember that every acre will still have walnut trees on it, but younger ones that voluntarily came up to replace the cut ones...they came up from the nuts dropped over the years, and thankfully were buried and forgotten by squirrels and such. Nature has ways of replenishing itself!

Now...this income doesn't even include the money brought in each year from the nut crop! Ever price black walnut pieces at the grocery store???Nor does it include trees toppled by storms, have walnut dieback, and such, that can be harvested from the entire 50 acres over the years!

What you have is a 50 acre Black Walnut PERPETUAL family trust that is a bank account awaiting its annual withdrawal of interest accrued!!!!! Know what I mean, Vern?

The smart thing to do is to set aside some of that income to buy up more mixed forest bottomland on occassion and do the same thing to it...thereby increasing the value of the family trust!!

Now, consider this: The original planter trains his kids to be fine wood workers...and they do the same to the succeeding generations. They have a nice wood working shop. They have a small sawmill, and a place to stack and season fresh-cut lumber...trees in, fine furniture out! Have you ever priced fine furniture in black walnut from...say...The Amana Furniture Company in the Amana Colonies in Iowa???? Hint! Hint!

[garymd]

Walnut, Cherry, Mohogony. I'll take any of those 3. Not a big oak fan. Trying to match antiques, which I do from time to time, usually means walnut or mahogany, depending on age or stain. I hate the black also. My rsw-12 is black (but out of view) and my rs3IIs are white and blended in with the decor so you don't even notice them.

m00n,

You cant use knotty pine because its too soft a wood plus you wouldn't want all those knots falling out! You'd end up with a ported speaker whether you wanted one or not.

[dodger]

Greetings:

I have to side with the "Give me wood, not black paint or vinyl side."

I also agree that it is pretty chintzy and cheap for Klipsch not to offer all of their Reference Line in wood. Offering only Vinyl and Plastic says a lot about what the Company thinks about product quality and the Consumer.

I have a McIntosh cabinet that someone painted black!! No-one wants to buy that.

My Brother-in-law has some different zebra wood: off white with black stripes. That would be striking for a cabinet.

I do agree that walnut is not dead just taking a rest.

I can guarantee one thing, I will NOT buy a plastic and vinyl speaker nor will I buy a black set either. You can paint my coffin black, but in speakers I want to see a company that has enough pride and quality to offer wood choices for ALL of its "Flagship" line. Black painted cabinets, plastic, vinyl are flags that should be burned.

Win dodger

[boomac]

That's it! The black Forte IIs are history. Where is that thread about re-veneering?

HDBRbuilder: So you think I goofed by not buying the farm next to this guy and planting some trees? Heck, it was 20 years ago so I would be half way home. Actually, I thought about it but then reality set in. Where's the MONEY?