Getting American Walnut to look a bit more red

Hi all,

I'm a vintage hifi nut. I'm, restoring some big 1970's JBL studio monitor speakers. So i need to reveneer and ideally try to get the American walnut to look like they did it back then. Fortunately I have another pair that were original from the JBL factory to match it to.

So I've sourced some nice American Walnut and have discovered it looks a lot more grey/brown and darker than what I'm trying to achieve. Seems back in the day they perhaps they air dried the walnut instead of the kiln drying that is done this days which drives the colour out a bit so I understand? Also JBL probably did add a bit of stain back in the day though I can't confirm this nor find out what they used, and finally the other speakers I'm trying to match are close to 40 years old and I'm told walnut actually gets lighter over time. Anyway regardles I wanna make it a bit more orange/red. Just looking for advice on how to do this.

The attached image shows the comparison of the unstained veneer sample against the speaker finish I'm trying to replicate. Also attached an image of the big studio monitors themselves, they are form '73 and are 1200mm long and each weight 120Kg!

Any advice on how to do this is appreciated. At this stage I am considering an orange stain ,ixed with alcohol as a first step, let that dry and then oil it with danish oil. Please let me know if this is a good plan or not. Also any ideas on where to source the appropriate stain in Sydney is appreciated.

The person who said that American Walnut will fade in time is right. Given a few years of exposure to UV your walnut veneer will look like the existing cabinets.

That dark grey/brown of freshly cut walnut doesn’t last long. I have some cabinets, tools and boxes made of Am. Walnut and yep, they’re now about the colour of those cabinets.

I don’t think any stain was applied to the original cabinets - it’s just so far from the usual finishing practices it’s really unlikely.

If there is an orange hue it could be from the finish yellowing.

Adding an orange stain to a dark timber, then letting it fade over time, will give you a completely unpredictable result - well that’s not quite right you can safely predict that the result will be awful one way or another.

Also, if the intention is to match the originals, then Danish Oil will be a poor match. The originals were probably done in some type of industrial lacquer, which has different build and surface characteristics.

If you want a close match on hue, you could see if there is some way to accelerate the fading of the walnut, maybe. No experience with that myself, but it’s where I’d start.

I also have some Crown electrostatics from the same era. They were originally the colour of your fresh veneer but now they are the same as your speakers. If you wish to match the finish you will have to reveneer them in the new walnut, oil them and then just wait. The original finish on the JBL Pro series was just oiled walnut or painted grey, but there is no information on the oil used.

:wts:

Walnut goes honey-coloured pretty quickly, leave it in direct sunlight and it might only take a few months.

This is the instructions on how to refinish their speakers, direct from JBL.

Thanks all for the advice, I'm glad I asked. Ok so no stain, and I'll Oil as per the linseed Oil/turpentine combination as per Bohdan's link. Will do a sample first and share. Thanks.