What prices are people paying for Black Walnut lumber now?? Please state what part of the country your in and whether green, kiln dried, air dried, rough, or S2S, and lot size. Is it going up or down in price?
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
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I buy western black walnut here in western Oregon for about $5 a board foot, 5/4. I get it from an old guy that logs, mills, and air dries it himself. He sells it s2s, he just sends it through his planer. At lumber stores I usually see anywhere from $6 to $8 a board foot, that's eastern walnut, usually steamed giving it that ugly yellow brown color.
Jeffrey
4/4 thru 8/4 about $5 BF kiln dried and skip planed in central indiana for less then 100 BF. Prices have been pretty stable at this for at least a few years. Most recent purchase was last month.
NONEXXX, where are you at in central Indiana? I live in southern Indiana and buy from a small mill in St Anthony. I have an older price list ( they list cherry sel& btr for $3.00, I just bought some from them and it went up to $3.25) any way they list walnut sel & btr >100 boardfeet for $2.00. This is kiln dried. Planning adds $.15 per board foot and rip cut one edge adds $.075 per cut/side.
If you are interested contact me and I can get you the name and number. [email protected]
MikeWe are the people our parents warned us about. J. Buffett
I'm up near Indy. The $5 BF is from Frank Miller over near Richmond. Locally I can only get 4 QTR from a production mill @ $4 BF. Yes please post the contact info for your source. Your cherry price is good too at $3 BF. I've been paying about $5 for P.A. cherry as well.
Here you go:
Indian Creek Wood Products
St Anthony IN
812 326-9802I would call and check on availability before you go.We are the people our parents warned us about. J. Buffett
Mike, I've seen some "deals" (discounted lifts) on 4/4 SEL & BTR, RW-RL, steamed, KD rough at a couple of mills in Michigan selling for between $3.30 and $3.50 per Board Foot. The lifts were all of 1000BF or greater and not subject to break up or sorting. Walnut has been averaging between $5 and $6 per board foot, KD S4S, at most of the retail outlets around here. I haven't actually bought any walnut for personal use in several years, since I still have a pretty good inventory of some beautiful local stuff I bought green about 10 years ago and am just now taking it off the stickers as I need it...You wouldn't believe the fabulous purple highlights (how sweet it is!)
Around here, walnut has been relatively stable in price after it actually came down a bit about 3 years ago...Although it does seem to be drifting up slightly over the past few months...as has hard maple...especially if you spec 10" & WIDER. The two species that have gone through the roof in this market, though, have been cherry and genuine (South American, AKA "Honduras") mahogany. Also, the quality of the cherry we're getting now has really hit the skids. Sap edges even on a lot of the 6" widths and it all has rather light heartwood pigmentation. Obviously less mature stock than we were able to get 4 or 5 years ago.
Jon, how is heartwood pigmentation related to the maturity of the tree? Is it a cumulative process? Another question: I know that Sycamore has one of the highest moisture contents of all hardwoods when alive and that it is usually found along riverbanks and other moist areas. How do these two facts relate to each other and to the additional fact that Sycamore has such an abundance of ray flecks when quartersawn?
Bill Lindau
Bill, you've asked several very complex questions here. I'll give you the quick (a little bit over simplified) answers...and then if you want to get into it further, we can.
The heartwood color of a wood usually results from the polymerization of the extractives produced by the tree. The tree transports these extractives inward along the rays and stores them in the dead, inner cells of the trunk. The heartwood of fully mature trees tends to be darker because its inner wood tissue has become fully saturated with these extractives and the extractives have (in most cases) more fully polymerized...this is a generalization and there are other factors that also contribute to the color in some species, i.e., soil type, chemical reactions, microbial infestations, etc.
The stump moisture content of a species doesn't necessarily relate to habitat (wet growing conditions.) It's more a function of the species and the density of its wood tissue...or more accurately how much void space its tissue has to hold free moisture when it is fully saturated. The Formula for calculating %MC yields a measure of how much the moisture in the wood is contributing to the total weight, expressed as a percentage of the dry wood's weight...so a wood's %MC can actually exceed 100% when it's fully saturated...and it often does in low density species like balsa.
The unusually large rays in sycamore are simply an anatomical feature of the species, based on its genetics...in the same way that the oaks and lacewood typically have large rays. Various unrelated species with large rays grow in all sorts of wet and arid climates, and produce woods of varying densities...so there really doesn't seem to be a functional relationship between these factors.
Jon, what is the function of the extractives? The whole process must be adaptive to the survival of the tree. But what we see as especially beautiful dark pigmentation must represent the tree's ability to have taken the minerals from the soil and converted them into something that can be drawn from in times of drought or disease? It seems like a tree like Sycamore with large rays would transport large amount of pigmentation, but that's not the case.
Bill
Bill, the chemical make up of the extractives varies, depending upon the species, but they tend to be antiseptic compounds of one sort or another. The interior wood tissue in a tree is dead, but it's nonetheless extremely important, since it holds the tree up so it's foliage can compete for sunlight. The extractives in the heartwood help to ward off decay organisms and keep this interior framework solid.
It's interesting that you should have picked sycamore as an example here in that different species seem to have different "strategies" for getting the job done...and sycamore doesn't rely much on the antiseptic value of its extractives. In fact, sycamore has very poor decay resistance and the heartwood often rots out even while the tree is still alive. Sycamore's rapid growth, though, seems to allow it to put on new wood tissue rapidly enough to keep the tree erect with a sort of tube-like lower trunk. Sycamore is a very ancient and rather unchanged botanical family (Platanaceae) and I guess the argument could be made that its chemistry isn't quite state-of-the-art as an effective defense as is the case in many other species that have rather potent (toxic) extractives.
As for rays, again, I don't think their physical size plays much of a role in how well the heartwood becomes packed with extractives. Not all of the tissue in a ray is vascular (meaning involved in the transport of extractives) and sycamore's rays just happen to be large and clunky. A lot of species get the job done with larger quantities of smaller rays.
Jon, So the extractives/pigmentation process is part of the tree's immune system. Even though the heartwood is not alive in the sense that it doesn't grow, the fact that it continues to receive fortifications and is integral to the organisms survival puts a different light on it.
The reason I picked Sycamore as an example is because I'm building a chair from some Sycamore that Rick Herbine quartersawed and kiln dried for me. It's primitive immune system makes for some outstanding visual character.
Twenty some years ago, I was working as a carpenter on a house on the back side(undeveloped side) of Beech Mtn, a ski resort in western NC. Locust trees grow like weeds around there. Often the temporary power service was nailed to a small living tree to save having to dig a hole for a post. I remember the power company crew that came to hookup the service saying that their company's policy was never to attach a temp service to a Locust tree because of the high frequency of lightning hitting Locust. Is there a connection between that fact and the fact that Locust is so well protected against decay? Are its' extractives some type of electrolyte? Another question, How is it that a tree like Locust, which grows so fast, is so dense and tough?
Bill
Bill, I like sycamore, too, and often use the quartersawn stock in dulcimers...for backs and sometimes soundboards. It looks great, but there's an unfortunate trade off in that it's tonal qualities are a little flat. I'd use sycamore more often in other, larger projects, if it didn't have such poor stability. It's moderately soft and easy to work...and it has surprisingly good shaping and turning characteristics, considering its large rays and sort of spongy (compressible) texture.
As for locust, I'm just guessing, but I suspect its high density might have something to do with the lightning rod effect. This is the first I've heard about that piece of locust trivia. Personally, I prefer honeylocust to black locust for cabinetmaking. It's a bit softer, has a warmer color and a more interesting, more ring-porous figure. Kentucky coffee tree (a close relative of the locusts) is nicer still.
Jon, What kind of problems can I expect to run into with Sycamore's "poor stability", as far as using it to make a rocking chair?I assume dimensionally it will vary with changes in humidity more than a wood with good stability. The Maloof joint I use to join the front leg to the seat, where the leg fits into a notch in the seat, capturing it(the leg) on three sides comes to my mind first as a potential problem. I would hope the fact that it's quartersawn would offset the poor stability some. If the above mentioned leg was glued up from several pieces,all oriented with the grain at 90deg to the side of the seat, would that increase it's stability?
All the Locust around here has a pretty yellow heartwood. I don't know Black from Honey Locust.
Bill
Bill, I wouldn't anticipate any big problems making a rocking chair out of sycamore. I'm assuming most of the parts are spindles that can distort quite a bit without affecting the structure. In turnings such as this, "quartersawn" is meaningless, but I'd definitely go with quartersawn stock for the seat slab and other flat parts...both for the special ray figure and also for the greater stability.
I suspect the most significant negative would be sycamore's relative softness. With an average specific gravity of only 0.46, it's less dense than cherry (0.47), so it doesn't have the best wear resistance. As for the joints, sycamore's volumetric shrinkage (14.1%) is actually lower than is hard maple's (14.7%.) These are both relatively high values, but beech, which is often used for chair making is much worse (17.2%.)
Jon, there won't be any turnings, but a good bit of bent laminations, the backrest will have a strip of ebony in the middle of five 1/8th inch strips. How will ebony do next to quartersawn Sycamore? You live and you learn. I've made a number of chairs out of Cherry and have learned to orient the grain for special joints, and have avoided any failures or mishaps. Sounds like Sycamore shouldn't give any trouble.
In general, how do volumetric shrinkage and specific gravity relate to dimensional variations due to seasonal changes in humidity?
In the attachment, I've noticed that in all my stock of Quartered Sycamore, the heart section has much larger spaces between growth rings than does the sapwood. Also the heart section seems to have distorted (shrunk) more than the sapwood. What 's the explanation for these facts? The pic is a cross section of a 3" x 9" timber.
I wish you would post some pictures of your dulcimers, and other things you have made.
Bill
Edited 9/29/2003 9:51:12 PM ET by BLINDAU
There is no strong correlation between volumetric shrinkage and a species' specific gravity. There probably is some significant correlation between density and distortion...in that, on average, dense woods that also have relatively high shrinkage values probably check and distort more than softer woods with comparable shrinkage. But only because the thinner cell walls in softer woods are capable of collapsing and absorbing stress more easily...The better clue to potential distortion is the species' T/R ratio...But that's the great mystery with sycamore. It has a rather low T/R ratio (only 1.68 to 1, and that's better than even cherry at 1.92)...In practice though, sycamore is one of the least stable (meaning most distortion prone) of all of our important domestic hardwoods...Must have something to do with the wood's physical anatomy or possibly this species' typical growing conditions, but I've never been able to track down exactly what it is.
As for posting a picture of one of my dulcimers...maybe one of these days, if I ever master both our computer and the wife's digital camera, I'll give it a try. Doubt if that will be anytime soon.
There is an excellent picture of Jon and one of his dulcimer's on page 11 in Encyclopedia of Wood- Time-Life Books. The clocks are beautiful. Did you make those as well?
Yes, Rob, aside from the botany and wood technology of cabinetwoods, my hands-on woodworking interests began with furniture making...Most of our furniture came out of my shop and, to tell the truth, it presents a somewhat embarrassing chronology of how to learn via the commision of mistakes. But there is nothing further we need in the way of large, functional furniture pieces. The design aspects of the craft have now become more interesting to me than the execution. Building the stuff gets to be too much like work when you become a little long in the tooth, like me.
For the same reason, over the past decade or so, I've gravitated toward putzing with clocks and dulcimers, which are time consuming, but not particularly labor intensive in the "heavy lifting" sense. they also give me the opportunity to experiment with a broad range of woods, without requiring large quantities of some of the rarer and more expensive exotics.
Dulcimers are especially interesting to me, because there are very few design conventions to deal with...and, also, I have a special love for the self sufficiency of folk crafts...where design stems from function and challenges the worker to find solutions within their skill limits. It's honest, unpretentious stuff with a certain innocent beauty...But now I'm starting to preach.
...Yes, I make clocks, dulcimers, decorative shelves, stools, jewelry boxes and other minor accent pieces these days. To qualify, the item just has to be light enough to lift up onto the work bench without getting a hernia.
---
...And as for that Time-Life shot, the photographer they sent out was a veritable plastic surgeon with a camera. He musta spent two hours futzing with the lighting and angles to peel at least a couple of decades off my appearance...Although some of my more recent dulcimers do show signs of honest improvement.
Edited 9/30/2003 9:59:40 PM ET by Jon Arno
Edited 9/30/2003 10:01:28 PM ET by Jon Arno
Rob, thanks for the tip. It seems that the book is out of print, but Amazon has several used copies for around $6.
Bill
Mike,
Last black walnut I bought was $4.97 b.f. for 5/4, s3s. That was for less than 10 feet, in the southern part of the perpetual circus state. GP
You live in Florida? <G>
Steve Wall Lumber Co. has 100 board feet of select walnut on their website for $300 rough. I've bought lumber from them in the past without any difficulty. The price doesn't include shipping.
I get lumber of any species native to MI rough sawn and kiln dried for $2.00 per bd ft. That would even include curly maple. The guy I get it from will even custom cut it to any thickness and dry it for the same price. Air dried is $1.25 per bd ft.
Tony
Where in Michigan do you live? Those prices are unreal.
Jerry
I live down below Jackson, MI a little ways. The wood source I have is up in Hartland. It is a little over an hour away but it is worth it. I called him up last Christmas and had him saw some 5/4 walnut for two Morris chairs I wanted to build. Come about April he had it ready to pick up and even left it stored in the kiln for me until I came and got it. He just saws to pay for his walleye fishing up in Canada. Really nice Guy too. I don't want to post his name and address on this list but if you request I'll e-mail it to you personally.
Sounds very interesting. I live in Ann Arbor and get my lumber from a place on M59 east of 23. I could use the name of your supplier.
Jerry
[email protected]
Nebraska, black walnut, 5/4 rough, random widths and lengths, dried, $1.25/bf. The grading is a little simplistic. Worth using, or firewood. Firewood is by the cord. 4/4 S2S FAS at your average retail outlets is around $5. Gotta love them small time sawyers. The time to go is when you know he's unloading the kilns. Early bird gets the worm.
"The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb " lyrics by Roger Waters
Mike
Suwanee Lumber: Suwanee, Ga. ( NE Atlanta, Ga. metro)
Walnut:
4/4 FAS under 100' $3.70 over 100' $3.40
4/4 FAS wide under $4.25 over $3.90
4/4 Downfall under $1.85 over $1.70
8/4 FAS under $4.40 over $4.10
Quote from a current price sheet last week.
Regards...
sarge..jt
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