NA Walnut neck. Opinions?
 

I have saved a nice North American Walnut billet for a while. I intend to use it as laminate for necks together with other harder woods.

As anyone ever used it to build necks? is anyone familiar with basses with a Walnut neck or multi lam with W? How do you like it?

Thank you

Maurizio

Hello Maurizio :)

I love walnut, It's a "can't go wrong" wood IMO. I've used it with figured maples, wenge, and purple, just to name a few. Wonderful to carve and sands up nice, I could go on, It's in my top 5 favorites. Maple walnut is common... just realized... I have 1 neck with those woods in the shop right now :p

+1 on Walnut, just finished an all walnut build . Love every aspect

Do you know if it's Claro Walnut, Black Walnut, or California Walnut?

I used it for my neck. I liked it so much, I decided the next build (current one) would have walnut laminates for the body too. I love the way it looks and I didn't have any problems with it.

I've used walnut as the main neck wood on two basses and I love it. Both necks have stringers of bloodwood and maple. I am using it on a guitar I'm building now and I'll surely use it in some future bass builds (I already have two necks planned using walnut).

Thank you! Wow, those are really nice combos. Walnut truly works well with many woods.

Hey Andrew, are those Purpleheart stringers?

HaMMerHed, I think it's a NW Figured Walnut. Here's a picture.



Thank you

Nice. I'd say Claro Walnut based on the purple-ish coloring. Dana has some similarly colored tops:

http://www.oregonwildwood.com/produc...WAES05883.html

Yes, that neck blank has a 1/2" wenge center lam, flanked by two 1/4" purplehart lams, followed by the two 1 1/8" black walnut lams. I don't expect this neck will move much, seeing as it 's going on a 35.5" scale neck through 5-string, little movement is a good thing, HA :) I'll be posting the build as soon as I get all the parts.

That's a good looking piece of walnut! can't wait to see what you do with it.

That piece could be Claro or Bastogne, either way, nice looking piece

You learn something new everyday. I was unfamiliar with this rarity. Thanks JC!

You got me looking at bookmatched walnut tops and planning another bass...

You're welcome.

:D Thank you.

On a side note walnut is a good alternative to wenge if you are looking for darker colored wood accent/streamer. Peruvian walnut is reasonable and darker in my opinion. Maybe its me but wenge is very expensive with shipping, but is just as expensive in local stores. Comments are correct about planing and finishing. I was fortunate to run into some walnut burl for tops but even thats getting hard to find in larger sizes - think furniture and auto companies are grabbing it first. A clear finish over walnut especially from that board would be stunning.

No prob Andrew, I have some of the most incredible Bastogne in the shop set aside for something really special if that ever arises....LOL

Why dose that not surprise me... lol :p I'm telln ya JC... I'm going to come visit and expect to be put to work. I'll take experience for payment ;)

Bud LeCompte used mostly walnut w/ wenge lams on my (6x2) 12ver.
Ebony board and Mahogony body.
It worked out great!
I wanted a warmer tone than I hear from a lot of dual course basses, and this combo of materials seemed to help achieved this.

I'll be waiting for that thread. The neck combo is really cool and I'm curious to see the rest.

It's a nice piece indeed and I've got to tell you, it's intimidating LOL

Yes, I got it from her long ago. It was listed as NW figured Walnut. Right now they don't seem to have any in stock though :hmm:

LOL... websites like OWW always have the same effect on me. It's an agony.... I feel for you.

For me both Wenge and Walnut are expensive. They basically come from the other side of the planet. I'd love to find a W burl.

I wholeheartedly agree on the clear finish.

LOL.... JC, I know exactly how that feels..... After one of my last builds run away with two of my favorite Claro sets I'm left with just one Claro and one Bastogne set and I don't see anything on the horizon that is special enough ;)


Claro


Bastogne

Stunning bass!!

Thank you all. And now I should think what to do with it, other than just stare at it with my morning cappuccino.

IMO walnut works great for bodies and necks. It's one of my favorite woods to work with for instruments or furniture. It's dense enough to not take every little bump and gouge while not being hard on tools and blades. Its not prone to splinter or burn from bits and it looks great with just a clear finish. (The majority of my experience is with black walnut due to location but the others I've worked had pretty similar characteristics as well.)

This bass has a black walnut neck and body core and turned out really well.

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