![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/claro-vg-curl_edited-1.jpg\" "\\"claro-vg-curl_edited-1\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nThis wood is so beautiful, varied, and agreeable to work with<\/strong>, that I imagine if I could have only one species of wood to use for everything, it might well be Claro walnut<\/strong>. It is so captivating that there is a real temptation to just join a few pieces corner to corner without any thought to a real design, state that “Woodwork is made by fools like me but only God can make a tree” (apologies to Joyce Kilmer), and leave it at that.<\/p>\n If there are doubts about this wood, it is only in being sure of its proper scientific label. Perhaps oversimplifying, Claro walnut is Juglans hindsii<\/strong><\/em>, native to northern California. The well-known Eastern (U.S.) black walnut, a great wood in its own right, is Juglans nigra<\/em>. As best I understand, “Claro walnut” lumber<\/strong> may come from trees that are J. hindsii<\/em> or a hindsii<\/em> x nigra <\/em>hybrid, or from the hindsii<\/em> root stock upon which Juglans regia<\/em>, English walnut, has been grafted. Botanical technicalities aside,\u00a0it’s just gorgeous wood.<\/p>\n Claro\u2019s strongest appeal to me is in the variety of rich colors that can be found mingled in a single board<\/strong>, most compellingly on a marbled quartered or rift surface. Even more spectacular, curly<\/strong> figure, delicate or ropy, may be superimposed on the marbled color<\/strong> array. Flatsawn boards are very often too gnarly for my taste, but certainly have their own appeal. Crotch figure is also available.<\/p>\n The working properties<\/strong> of Claro are much like black walnut: excellent. It is a medium-hard wood, pleasant to work but with enough surface hardness for any furniture item. Sawing, joinery, and gluing are almost always without problems.<\/strong> Layout lines can be difficult to see but angling a light source can pick up the glistening of a graphite line fairly well. White art pencils blunt quickly but can be helpful for less critically precise layout.<\/p>\n The wood responds well to hand planing<\/strong> which gives an exciting clarity<\/strong> to vertical grain (quartered) and most rift surfaces. It can sometimes be a bit brittle under the plane. If you like swirly boards, scraping works better. For finishing<\/a>, varnish and oil-varnish mixes have worked well. Shellac is another good option; water base is not, in my opinion.<\/p>\n The stability figures for Claro are very favorable<\/strong> and this is my shop sense as well. According to The Wood Database<\/a>, Claro shrinkage is 4.3% radial, 6.4% tangential, 10.7% volumetric, and T\/R is 1.5. Quartered boards, as expected, are very stable.<\/p>\n Here on the East coast U.S., I purchase Claro from across the continent so it is particularly important to buy from a dealer on whom I can rely<\/strong>. As for big-leaf maple<\/a>, Northwest Timber<\/a> in Oregon is my first choice for Claro walnut.<\/p>\n This wood is so beautiful, varied, and agreeable to work with, that I imagine if I could have only one species of wood to use for everything, it might well be Claro walnut. It is so captivating that there is a real temptation to just join a few pieces corner to corner without any thought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wood","tag-woods-i-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2994,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions\/2994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rpwoodwork.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"