The Claro thread is most interesting, but I have a question that would be a bit off topic. The background is that my parents live in a virgin hardwood forest. We do not EVER cut healthy, live trees, but occasionally have to drop large dead or dying ones. So far, the main species have been oak, mostly Quercus Alba. We are about to take down another 100 foot specimen of that with about a 4′ dbh. Needless to say, it will be milled and dried.
In the lowlands, along a small river, however, American Black Walnut, Juglans Nigra is a dominant tree and grows 3′ in diameter and 60′ to 70′ tall. Sooner or later, one will need to be cut.
Are there any tricks to milling and drying this for best color and figure? Should we look to the butt and roots for heavy figure? How about the crown above the first major crotch? the wood there is obviously narrower, but is there any reason why if would not make good sawn timber?
Joe
Edited 5/15/2007 8:26 pm ET by Joe Sullivan
Replies
Joe
I wish I had taken picture's, but the last walnut tree I milled was a similar sized monster like the one you are describing. It was removed from what was about to be the family room of a very large custom home. I milled the bottom 36' in 3 12' sections. The rest was kept by the owner of the property for firewood.
Walnut is best either slabbed, or flatsawn, in my humble opinion. Air dried walnut is one of the most beautiful woods available in North America, along with Cherry, in my opinion also.
Remembering correctly, I got almost 1100 board feet of lumber out of that tree.
Jeff
Jeff:
What is the difference between slabbed and flatsawn? You prefer that because of the figure, I'm guessing. Seems from what I read that air drying preserves the color and figure? Is there any to kiln dry and still keep those qualities?
Joe
Slabbing is cutting the log through and through, from top to bottom, yielding long, wide "slabs" of wood with both quartersawn and flatsawn wood. If your log is 30" wide, the slab will be 30" wide, and contain all the character found in the tree, good and bad.
For cherry and walnut, I love working with slabs, as they are fairly stable once dried, and yield some fantastic furniture building opportunities.
Slabbing can create a great "flitch" of wood, where all the boards are cut in sequence, with bookmatched grain from one to the next. Often, two bookmatched slabs can yield a fantastic result in a piece, where one by itself can be lacking.
Flatsawing with a bandmill requires frequent turning of the log to continually saw the face yielding the best "face". Qsawn in one direction flipped 90° yields flatsawn on the perpindicular face. When you are facing Qsawn wood again, flip again, and so on.
With a swing mill, all of this can be accomplished without moving the log. However, that's a bit off topic, so I'll save it for another discussion.
I prefer air dried walnut. Most kiln dried walnut is steamed to even out the color between the sapwood and the heart wood, leaving a homogenously bland chocolate color throughout. With air dried walnut, you can get some fantastic greens, reds, and purples that would disappear during the kilning process. I guess it's just a matter of what you are trying to achieve with the piece you are constructing.
Jeff
OK, I'm with you. What you call "slabbing," I call "through and through." Doesn't the pith cause trouble?
Back to kiln drying -- I agree that it would be better to keep all the color for the kind of things I like. The question is, does kiln drying inherentl have a steaming effect, or can wood be kiln dried, perhaps more slowly, and keep its character?
Joe
Joe, I don't pretend to be an expert but...... In my experience walnut that has been properly kiln dried, not steamed yields usable stock that is indistinguishable from walnut that has been air dried. The only problem in kiln drying is if it is done improperly. Kiln drying is a science. Walnut has its' own schedule. If the process is done too rapidly then all kinds of problems arise. Bill
So I gather. Certainly glad to learn all of this before we have timber to mill and mess up. It would be very discouraging to mill an old growth tree, dry it, and then learn that we had second rate results due to ignorance, eh?
Joe
Lindau,
In my experiance (and I too claim no real expertese) I've noted a differance.. the speed wood is dried at in a kiln lessons the brillance of color in Black walnut. the color is more muted and does not "pop" as much when finished..
You are absolutely correct when you say steam kills the color
Joe,
I used to buy walnut from a guy in Lamberville, NJ who was in the lumber business for over 50 years and sold wood to the Nakashima's. He often told me that walnut was so stable once sawn that it was the only wood that you could dry standing on end. I believe him. Cherry on the other hand, will move a lot if not stored properly.
Doug
Doug,
I'll go you one better,, Black walnut is the only wood I can air dry without stickers!
I stacked some up expecting to lose some of it but space and time was too tight to allow me to sticker it.. a year and a half later when I finally got to dig it out it was dry and perfect..
To deviate a little, I have a very old slab of Black Walnut -- been drying for at least 20 years. It is about 6 or 7 feet long, and 16 or more inches wide. Not all is clear. there are a couple of knots and a crack. However, there is enough good wood to make something. The problem is, it is 4" or so thick. No way that wood 16 inches wide can be resawn on my bandsaw. I could make a bench or table out of the slab, but it would seem wasteful.
Any ideas?
J
Edited 5/16/2007 2:21 pm ET by Joe Sullivan
Joe,
Being it isn't perfect anyway, just rip it to narrower widths layed out to get the best yield and then resaw it to the thicknesses you need. Just because it is wide doesn't make it unique, almost all walnut started out in trees 2 to 3 feet wide, if not wider.
John W.
True. Indisputably true. I guess I have spent too much time looking at and buying skinny boards while hearing about the marvelous wide boards of yore.
With our trove of old gowth white oak that we are to have milled this summer we are trying for q-sawn wood in the 14 to 18 inch class without pith. I just like it. But, the wide boards will be sawn at 4/4. As we drop down to the narrower cuts we will go for 8/4 and 12/4.
J
Joe,
The real skill of wood working in my humble opinion (which is always right or I'll flick a bugger onto your computer screen;-) is in creating things from interesting woods.. your plank has a story, even if it's that' it's taken 20 years to find a use for it.
I personally can think of a half dozen things to do with a chunk of wood like that, probably more if I gave it my undivided attention..
I've actually got several planks much larger than that of black walnut.. Some will become my bar, some will become a table and one really nice piece will become the coffe table in the living room..
Use the character that makes that wood.. the crack, the knots and etc.. maybe do an inlay around the edge,, feature them rather than attempting to hide them they have their own interesting story to tell.. plastic can't have that story neither can any man made things.. they wind up being too perfect so they are boring and common place..
maybe the two knots and the crack (check?) look sorta like a face? maybe they can be a map of a local interesting spot, whatever you can do be creative. Involve your family and friends.
frenchy,
I totally agree with you, but it has to be done right.
Defects as we might call them, don't always fit the piece we are making. Sometimes I'll cut the defects out, save them in the cutoff bin and then incorporate them into another piece, like a in a box or as an inlay.
I've cut out knots or even small burl parts and inlayed them into larger pieces.
Imagination/inovation.
Gotta love it, Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob,
Your point is well made. (and clearly stated.. hard to argue with something like that..) so I won't <G>
Frenchy:
Agree completely. I like naturlistic wood in many applications. The problem is that I would prefer not to use the full 4x thickness. Walnut is not easy to come by inexpensively in North Texas. In fact, no hardwood is. My family has plenty of hardwood, 850 miles north of me, and I have some, 250 miles north of you, which is 1300 miles from me. Not too convenient.
I brought some burr oak back from Itasca County. Very slow grown close grained far northern wood, tiny knots. The ends of one of the logs had been rotton. I kept the irregular edge where it was not punky, and plan to make a coffee table out of it as soon as the design fully comes to me.
J
Joe
I understand your position.. I wish we were neighbors, I'd walk over and hand you 4 boards about the same length and width board in 4/4 and take your piece in exchange..
Not sure what I'd do with it either but at least a whole lot of it wouldn't wind up as sawdust under some machine..
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