The default high-end American hardwood for furniture. Chocolate-brown heartwood, creamy sapwood, the contrast that defines half a century of mid-century furniture. Walnut works under hand and machine more easily than maple or oak — softer to the gouge, sharper to the smoothing plane, less inclined to tear out at a knot. The wood Nakashima built his reputation on. The wood Eames chairs accept as veneer. The wood that lets a beginner get a piece that looks like a piece, faster than the hardness ratings would predict.
Semi-ring-porous hardwood with diffuse-porous tendencies in the late wood; medium texture, open grain that fills with paste filler for a glass-smooth finish or reads honestly under oil. Janka hardness ~1010 lbf — softer than oak (1360) or maple (1450), easier to work. Air-dries with little movement; takes stain and dye evenly though the natural color rarely needs help. Glues, screws, and joinery all behave. Steam-bends acceptably. Heartwood deepens toward black-brown over decades of UV; the sapwood is creamy and is sometimes excluded from premium boards or sometimes celebrated for the contrast.
Principled BSDF defaults derived from the sphere woodgrain finish. Reasonable seed for Blender, Substance, Keyshot, Rhino — tune per material. Or grab the whole library at once: ForMaterials library →
# finish: woodgrain albedo #5b3a23 metallic 0.00 roughness 0.60 ior 1.45 transmission 0.00 clearcoat 0.00 sheen 0.00 anisotropic 0.60
{
"albedo": "#5b3a23",
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.6,
"ior": 1.45,
"transmission": 0.0,
"clearcoat": 0.0,
"sheen": 0.0,
"anisotropic": 0.6
}
# Blender 4.x — Principled BSDF
# American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) · finish: woodgrain
import bpy
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="mat_walnut_black")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
bsdf.inputs["Base Color"].default_value = (0.1046, 0.0423, 0.0168, 1.0)
bsdf.inputs["Metallic"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Roughness"].default_value = 0.600
bsdf.inputs["IOR"].default_value = 1.450
bsdf.inputs["Transmission Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Coat Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Sheen Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Anisotropic"].default_value = 0.600
# KeyShot 11+ — lux Python API, Generic material
# American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) · finish: woodgrain
# Run from Window → Scripting Console
import lux
mat = lux.createMaterial(name="mat_walnut_black", materialType="Generic")
mat.setProperty("diffuse", (91, 58, 35)) # 8-bit sRGB
mat.setProperty("metallic", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("roughness", 0.600)
mat.setProperty("indexOfRefraction", 1.450)
mat.setProperty("transparency", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("coatingWeight", 0.000)
{
"_format": "Substance Designer / Painter \u2014 pbrMetalRough constants",
"_about": "American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) \u00b7 finish: woodgrain",
"baseColor": {
"r": 0.1046,
"g": 0.0423,
"b": 0.0168
},
"metallic": 0.0,
"roughness": 0.6,
"ior": 1.45,
"opacity": 1.0,
"anisotropyLevel": 0.6,
"_notes": "Channels listed are the standard Substance pbrMetalRough output. Drop into a Uniform Color node per channel, or as the constant input on a layered stack."
}{
"asset": {
"version": "2.0",
"generator": "ForMatter"
},
"materials": [
{
"name": "mat_walnut_black",
"pbrMetallicRoughness": {
"baseColorFactor": [
0.1046,
0.0423,
0.0168,
1.0
],
"metallicFactor": 0.0,
"roughnessFactor": 0.6
},
"extensions": {
"KHR_materials_ior": {
"ior": 1.45
}
}
}
]
}# USD Preview Surface — UsdShade.MaterialLook prim attributes
# American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) · finish: woodgrain
def Material "mat_walnut_black" {
token outputs:surface.connect = </mat_walnut_black/PreviewSurface.outputs:surface>
def Shader "PreviewSurface" {
uniform token info:id = "UsdPreviewSurface"
color3f inputs:diffuseColor = (0.1046, 0.0423, 0.0168)
float inputs:metallic = 0.000
float inputs:roughness = 0.600
float inputs:ior = 1.450
float inputs:opacity = 1.000
float inputs:clearcoat = 0.000
token outputs:surface
}
}
Premium American hardwood. Mills cleanly with sharp carbide; tearout possible on figured grain — use a downcut bit for visible top faces or a compression bit for through-cuts. Walnut dust is irritant to some; respirator with the dust collection.
Onsrud Cutter hardwood feeds & speeds; USDA Forest Products Lab Black Walnut machining guidance.
→ try this material in swarfUSDA Forest Products Lab Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282), Black Walnut entry; The Wood Database; *Understanding Wood* (R. Bruce Hoadley, Taunton Press, 2nd ed.).
Walnut with upholstery fabric, shaped and joined; accession 1967.78.
House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.
Materials and processes for people who design and make things.
A local-first library of materials, processes, applications, and finishes — equal weight, citable everywhere, with cost-over-volume curves, trade-off profiles, equipment-tier filters, and second-life paths layered onto the data so a student can move from "what is this" toward "what's actually buildable here, now, by me." Part of the renato.design ecosystem — sibling of Plenum, Specimen, Ingenue, gesture, graf, and the Renato Rhino plug-ins. Form and matter, inseparable.
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Conway's Material World on raw materials, Lefteri's Making It on processes, Forty's Concrete and Culture, Sparke's Design in Context, Bürdek's Design: History, Theory and Practice of Product Design, Schröpfer's Material Design on materials in architecture, Winchester's The Perfectionists on tolerance, Minshall's Your Life Is Manufactured on the global supply chain, von Busch's Making Trouble on material activism, Were's How Materials Matter, Hegger / Drexler / Zeumer's Basics Materials, Untracht and McCreight on metalsmithing, USDA Forest Products Lab on woods, GIA on gemstones, Schott / CoorsTek / Toray / Owens Corning datasheets, MakeItFrom for verifiable property numbers, ASM Handbook, ISO standards. Museum holdings draw from the Met, MAD, V&A, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Newark Museum of Art, British Museum, Heard Museum, Smithsonian NMAI, Eiteljorg Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Grand Rapids Art Museum — collection-record permalinks only, designer overview pages and exhibition listings excluded. Voice blocks now ride on every entry kind — material, process, application, and finish — and include Ruskin on iron, Anni Albers on twining, Greg Lynn on the shred-and-teeth NURBS lineage, Pugin on the metal that won't be hammered, Barthes / Yanagi / Benjamin channeled within their philosophy; Sparke, Bürdek, Forty, Conway, Schröpfer, Minshall, von Busch, Lefteri, Pat Pruitt, Mary Lee Hu, Tom Joyce, Albert Paley, and the rest of the contemporary makers quoted verbatim with citation. All cited.
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