There are a ton of different walnuts and the conditions they grow in add an incredible number of variables into the mix. Claro is a native California black walnut, but very different from American black walnut. It runs lighter in weight, redder in color and has a tendency to be more figured than black. It has a distinctive pink tone regularly.
All European walnuts are the same species and vary mostly because of growing conditions and age. Turkish, Circassian, French, English, etc are all the same. Colors vary but tend toward lighter yellowish tans with black streaks. Some is as hard, dense and stable as wood gets.
Crossing claro with a European walnut produces a mule known as bastogne or paradox walnut. Bastogne runs harder, denser and more recoil resistant (tougher) than most black and claro and toward the front of the European walnut pack.
I have two nearly identical looking claro blanks in the shop right now that look to have been cut from the same tree and perhaps they grew side-by-side, yet one weighs half-again what the other does.
ANother variable in very high end walnut, especially Turkish and other varieties of European is depth. The best blanks when wetted look like they are reflecting light from the back side and it seems you can look WAY down deep in them. In good sunlight they seem to glow. I have never seen this in claro or bastogne, but I have seen some black and much European walnut that has it.
Which one is best? Depends on what you are building... MOr elater, another interruption.
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