HBDR ?

[bryan750]

I am looking to buy some black walnut and I wanted to know what to look for,thickness,grade,etc.thanks in advance

[HDBRbuilder]

You are gonna buy some black walnut what? Veneer? Veneered plywood? Veneered lumbercore plywood? Solid black walnut? What are you gonna build? I can't help you out if you aren't specific.

[fini]

Andy,

You forgot "trees?"

[Marvel]

Trees? A friend of mine cut down two black walnut trees. Had is sawed up, stored it for a couple of years and then made furniture out of it. It is beautiful.

Marvel

[WMcD]

Well I'll ask too.

I plan to make some speakers and would like to use a glue on veneer of some sort. The types which comes in full sheets. I don't have to techique to glue individual swatches together. Walnut is at least one choice.

Perhaps Andy can suggest a source, thickness, technique, etc.

TIA,

Gil

[HDBRbuilder]

Gil,

The last time I checked (about a year or so ago), black walnut slice-veneered plywood was running about 96 bucks for a 4' x 8' sheet around here at a specialty shop that caters to cabinet shops. I would imagine that it has soared over 100 bucks a sheet by now, though. I imagine that would be the easiest route to take, and would save the hassle of veneering the finished product yourself. Of course, that all depends on how you plan to construct the cabinets. If you plan to use mitered edges, then the ready to go plywood would be the best bet. The plywood I have seen has quite a few plys to 3/4" stock, and is imported from China. The problem that SOME folks run into has to do with ply separations occuring on occasion. That plywood has a hardwood core ply, but the hardwood for the core is NOT kiln dried, and sometimes it has too much moisture content, so it may separate on occasion. The best way to buy that stuff is to get it in the heat of the summer, that way if it is gonna separate, it would have already done so from the heat while in shipping and storage. Hope this helps some.

[WMcD]

Many thanks,

I'll probably try Constantine. OTOH they must be buying from some other source. I'll check around.

When I tried this before I learned that the environmently friendly form of contact cement does not work very well. The classic contact cement does but has nasty fumes even when used in a home garage with the door open.

I've read that some woodworkers used yellow glue as a thermo adhesive. Put it down on both piecesd, allow to dry. Then iron it in place. Somewhat like the iron on veneer edge stips from HD. An interesting alternative.

Gil

[HornEd]

Gil, I too have used black walnut to good advantage harvested from trees on my property, sawn into lumber and aged. Sadly, my impending wedding has used up my supply... particularly in having custom solid black walnut bedroom furniture constructed for the event. The new furnishings match a pair of beautiful black walnut Belles which will serve as a two-channel bedroom system.

I wish this post would have included some benefit for you... but, while I might have been able to send you some... my supply is now exhausted... although I shall probably repeat the process. I have similarly processed cherry, maple, oak and redwood from my part of the mountain forest... but stocks have been depleted by a spate of other projects related to rejoining the ranks of wedded bliss.

My mountain neighbor is a retired professor with a passion for wood... and a "portable" sawmill to boot. While it is technically portable... the portability process is rather extensive. This is a guy who plays with bulldozers, backhoes, hydraulic baskets that reach out 30' and allow you to move and steer the whole unit... and such. He is very friendly, especially since access to his box canyon is only is by a creek-side road across my property.

With thousands of trees between us... and more available from neighbors who own large tracts that would like their overgrown areas thinned... I wonder if there is any viability into using our trees for more than my penchant for building with quality woods?

In the meantime, Gil, I look forward to posts of your adventures in speaker building... from acoustic concept to final veneer. -HornEd

[greg928gts]

Gil,

The iron-on method is a lot of work. I don't think it will work well with backed veneer, only the raw wood veneer.

You can get the NBL backed veneer from www.tapeease.com. This is what is on the rosewood Khorns that I recently did. www.dcchomes.com/RosewoodKhorn.html I would recommend the oil-based contact cement. There are two concerns with this type of veneer. First, the actual veneer layer over the backer is so thin that you really can't sand it. Second, the backer is a light colored wood, so on projects with dark veneers like rosewood, the edges show up very light. On the Khorns I used raw veneer strips for the edges to solve this problem. On other projects I actually used an artists brush and painted the edges, including darker colors to simulate the wood grain.

A good source for raw, unbacked veneer is www.certainlywood.com This is more like real woodworking and requires some skil. When using the iron-on method, I have found that it's tricky to make sure the veneer has completely set and is not bubbling. I've had problems with curling, cracking, and bubbling. Like I said, more like real woodworking. The difference between a good woodworker and a great woodworker, is in how well one hides their mistakes! I'm still working on that.

Greg

[WMcD]

Gee, in view of the above maybe I should just look for some plywood - MFD with the veneer already applied and then just tape the edges.

My ambition gets ahead of my skills.

Thanks to all for the advice and comments. One thought is to post the full story around Christmas in a series of humorous photos. Sort of like serial radio.

Best,

Gil

[HDBRbuilder]

Gil,

If you are intending to make speaker cabinets, then using pre-veneered plywood is the way to go...especially if you have the capability to make accurate miter cuts and have the equipment to use reinforcing corner glue blocks on the inside of those miter joints. It is hard to beat pre-veneered stock for that type of use, if for no other reason than the savings in time of parts fabrication, the elimination of the hassle of veneering the cabinet after construction, etc.

One thing about applying veneers to pre-built cabinets is that at the corner seams there will be an overlap of the veneers...kinda like a butt joint, with the sharp edge there showing a thicker seam (in relation to the thickness of the veneer used); whereas on a mitered cabinet using pre-veneered stock, the edge is sharp and the veneer has been mitered so that the seam is an extremely fine line, which upon close inspection appears to be a continuation of the grain (provided you have cross-cut the panels so that they match up at the seams).

If you intend to completely design a new speaker, then my advice is to construct a prototype model for testing and such, using plain birch plywood or MDF, or whatever...if you prefer. Once you have the bugs worked out in the design, then use the same dimensions of the final prototype to build your final version out of nice veneered plywood. That way, on your prototype, you can quickly construct its cabinet using butt joints and such, since it won't have any aesthetic qualities intended...OR you can build it using mitered joints, which will give you some practice in those skills. After de-bugging the prototype, you can invest in the nice EXPENSIVE wood for the final version. Another asset to doing things this way is that you get a chance to hone your skills in woodworking a bit more before getting to the point of possibly messing up some EXPENSIVE wood. It doesn't matter how much experience one has in wood working because if one has NOT been practicing it steadily, one becomes a bit "rusty" at it...and the time spent on a prototype is worth a small fortune in regaining some of those skills.

Just a thought.

[HDBRbuilder]

Bryan750,

You have not responded, and I hope that my initial response to you did not seem "out of line", which may have caused you not to respond.

If you could tell me what your intended use for the wood is, then I could help you in your query.

My answer would also depend upon where you live, what kind of woodworking equipment you have for the project (ie, a thickness planer, etc.), your woodworking skills, and other variables.

One thing I have found out over the years is that if you are in a region where black walnut is common in the forests and such, then there are often relatively inexpensive ways to aquire some really nice solid black walnut stock.

For example: There are a number of pallet companies that are also timber buyers, ie., they go out and buy timber, cut the trees, transport them to their mill, saw them up into what they need for the pallet portion of their business, etc. When these guys go cut timber they tend to cut lots of it, and sometimes they end up with walnut or cherry logs, etc. They saw these up and either kiln dry them or season them...normally kiln-dry them. Because these folks know the value of this lumber they tend not to use it for their pallet production, but instead store it back until they have enough quantity to broker a deal to some other company for the lumber. They often will let people come out and search through their good stuff and pick out some nice boards for purchase. Normally they have a set board-foot price for this lumber, because individually grading each board is a timely hassle....which means the asking price will be the same for ANY of their black walnut boards no matter what the quality, figure, or grade. In this case, you can pick up some REALLY NICE wood for a minimum outlay in cash..and you can also pick out boards that have been consecutivley sliced(sawn) so that you can use them for book-matching in construction of your project. All it normally takes is a few calls to these places to find a virtual gold mine of lumber at one of them.

[fini]

Andy,

There's a business near me (CaliCo Hardwoods) that makes gunstock blanks. They have a HUGE pile of mostly smaller chunks of black walnut that they sell by the pick-up load (for firewood, mostly). Not very useful for speaker building, though.