Which walnut is the "mystery" stock blank?

[Naphtali]

Knowing little about woods and having no access to expert examination, how can I differentiate between European Walnut (Juglans regia) and American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) when examining a "mystery" stock blank?

[rich pierce]

There is so much variation that it requires analysis under a microscope to be sure in most cases.  The US Forestry Service does this.  That does not help you when selecting a blank.  Black walnut will usually stain the hands, trends to a purplish cast, but can have warm highlights.  Euro walnut varies widely in color and the tones can overlap in some cases but Euro walnut is often warmer in color with even some yellow-ish cast to it.

[excess650]

You could post pictures of the blanks here, and get opinions.

I have black walnut (heart wood) that runs from tan/pinkish to dark red, brown and black.  European walnut tends to have tighter pores, but it depends upon where it was grown.  I have some English that was grown in central Pennsylvania that is light in color, soft, and has wide pores.

Its kinda like asking what kind of maple when looking at curly maple, but think it easier to differentiate walnut than maple by looking at a blank.

[t.caster]

Coloration and grain are somewhat different as stated. I have some of each and notice they smell different as well. American is bitter to the sinus, while the English is a sweeter, nuttyer smell. At least to my nose. Hey, why not....the nuts and shells are quite different too!

Do a Google Image search for Walnut Lumber grading, or some variation of that.....lots of pics come up for color & grain comparisons.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

I have two black walnut stocks in my shop. one from Illinois and one from Oregon...the one from Oregon is very tight grained with very small pores that are very easy to fil.  The one from Illinois has much larger pores and while still very nice will require a lot of filling.....

[Dennis Glazener]

stain the hands,

Rich,
This is one that I have never heard of before. Not saying it won't but my buddy and I have cut quite a bit of Virginia grown black walnut, had it sawn into boards and gun stocks. I have built several black walnut stocked rifles and I have never had my hands to stain from the wood. Now the walnut hulls are another story
Dennis

[billd]

I had Dave Keck cut a piece of West Coast Bastogne Walnut and his hands stained purple.  He told me this wasn't the first time it happened.

Bill

[Bob Roller]

I have had my hands stained purple in years past by walnut while making a stock. The last two rifles I made of walnut were a boys rifle patterned after an original Whitworth and a full stock,steel trimmed 58 caliber flint lock and I didn't get any purple stains from either.
I am now slowly making up a half baked representation of an N.Lewis half stock 50 caliber caplock with no rib.It too is walnut but I'm not far enough into it to know about any staining of skin.

Bob Roller

[The other DWS]

This is another of those things that has so many variables that hard and fast rules don't work well.  A lot depends on the amount of staining chemicals IN the wood piece; and it varies from tree to tree,  not necessarily from the species.
 It also depends greatly on your own body/hands chemistry. I have even gotten stained hands from cherry wood, but not nearly as dark as with walnut.  Even well dried and aged walnut can stain if your chemistry works that way. one of my buddies simply does not react to it.  We can be working on the same piece of walnut and I wind up with purple hands and he shows none at all.
  I suspect that the grafted euro-walnut grown on North American "black" walnut root stocks stains about as much as straight Am black walnut does.  The few pieces of  genuine imported hard dense grained euro-walnut did not seem to stain me as much as the NA stuff does

[FALout]

Some walnut will stain your hands from brown to purple.  Depends on what your doing, lots of sanding will do it compared to using chisels and gouges.  It can be real hard to tell the european from the american walnut in the rough sawn state when your not used to using either.  If your looking for euro walnut, you'll be better off dealing with major suppliers if your buying "sight un-seen".