Advice on handling sun-bleached walnut?

[bois]

This is a bit of a unique challenge I'm facing right now, so I thought I'd throw this one out to get some crowd wisdom. I recently took on a very unique commission. My customer started building his wife a blanked chest 17 years ago. He got as far as gluing up the case, and then put the carcass in his attic by a window until now. In that time, the walnut has bleached out quite dramatically to the point that it looks more like butternut than walnut. At the same time, some of the boards in the edge laminations bleached out more than others, creating some fairly uneven color. Despite considerable sanding at 80 grit, the bleaching is still quite apparent. While unorthodox, my current plan is to spray the entire thing with dark brown TransTint dye suspended in denatured alcohol to avoid raising the grain. My hope is that will bring back some even color while also evening out the inconsistency. However, I've never dyed walnut before (nor would I ordinarily need to). My best guess is this stock was not steamed like most walnut you find today, resulting in the dramatic color changes over time. But any other tips or ideas are welcome.

[AcornHouse]

What about one of the Walnut Danish oils? (Dark, medium, or light, take your pick.)

[TimV]

Is it possible to plane or scrape down a layer to dark?

[bois]

Strangely enough I can't really seem to sand through to darker wood. The bleaching seems to have run deep. The dop is dark on one side so I'm sure I could eventually sand enough but that is more work than I budgeted for on this one.