I live in the south and I have found buying premium Walunt to be quite challenging. The wood seems to be either twisted, warped or has some other type of defect. Is this just an issue with the south or is there another way to purchase flat Walnut? I have thought of ordering but the shipping gets expensive and I do not like buying wood without looking at it first.
Allen
Replies
Allen,
I live in the capital of the Confederacy and the walnut I get here is a little squirrelly from time to time. I buy mine from one of two sources, a Woodcraft store and a local lumber and millwork dealer. The Woodcraft store has the lowest price and the most questionable quality so I have to pick through the stack to get what I want. As long as they have enough to choose from, I'm okay. I built a king size bedroom set a couple of years ago and it took me about two hours to get what I wanted. Spent so much time moving wood, customers' thought I worked there! The local dealer has a much better grade of walnut but his price is about 25% higher, almost $7 a bd/ft. Sounds to me that it might be time to find another outlet for your wood. I've never tried mail order but I know others that have and had good luck. If nothing else, it may be worth an hour's drive, or two, to get what you really want.
Any luck finding something by a local sawyer? You might try advertising in the classified section that you're looking for some walnut and see if you get a nibble.
Good luck,
Kell
Thanks for the advice. I am glad to know I am not the only one struggling for good walnut. I bought walnut at one time in Decab TX and it was the best I have come across. The only problem is that it is about a 7 hour drive now. I wish I could find this deal again because I only paid $2.60/bd foot. How much does walnut sell far in the north? Here it is about $4 to$5 per bd foot in the rough.
I paid 17 cents a bd.ft. rough and green at the mill a few years ago (of course I had to buy a couple thousand bd.ft. to get those prices) It was an order that wasn't picked up and was mill run... That is, the bunker contained everything from FAS to #2b It was all heartwood so there was little waste. in fact some of the most interesting grain came from what they graded #2b.
Up to last year when I custom ordered Black Walnut I paid 30 cents a bd.ft. then suddenly foriegn buyers offered really silly prices and now Black walnut is over$1.80 bd.ft. for FAS rough and green at the mill. Expect prices to start climbing soon at woodcrafters as they work their way thru the low priced stuff in their inventory.
(I'm in Minnesota where we have a fair amount of Black walnut)
...then suddenly foriegn buyers offered really silly prices and now Black walnut is over$1.80 bd.ft. ...
Frenchy, darlin', i'm going to have to put you on "ignore".
I just bought 5 boards of 8/4 for $761. Not figured, not esp. wide, just mostly clear and not too much sapwood...
Edited 10/21/2002 9:39:53 PM ET by SPLINTIE
These sound more like the prices I am used to. What part of the country did you purchase this lumber?
This was in Missoula, MT. I got to look through the whole pile for the best boards for the sculpture bases i make (wide/clear stock), so i think i might have paid more for that privilege.
Splintie Ol' buddy,
That's whatcha do'in wrong. you go buy a few boards at a time.
Make it cheap, buy the whole pile right from the mill. You'll pay the same amount but have a thousand bd.ft. instead of a hundred. Take mill run and you'll get highly figured wood, FAS wood and some firewood.
buy it rough and green and sticker it up yourself. (best color is air dried black walnut)
Hint don't ever burn your stickers just because you think you're done drying ........
Hello my name is frnchy and I'm a woodaholic.......
I am in Virginia and have used not alot (about 300) BF of walnut in the last 10 years. There are bad boards in every pile unless you pay a premium price for picked through boards. I have found some very elegant wood and not too much waste in that stack. I don't think bad walnut is a "Southern phenomenon".
Frank
No walnut here, Frenchy, unless we tend it like a flower garden. I get offers all the time when i'm at an art fair a day's drive from home, would i like to mill someone's 4' diameter walnut tree that stands in the way of their house addition.
I had my first experience with air-dried walnut doing some bookcases for a fellow who had hauled a stash out of the Cleveland area. Gorgoeus tones in that wood.
But the lodgepoles here make maginificent house logs--very straight. When i was in California, i couldn't understand them speaking so disdainfully of this specie (called tamarack there) until i saw how miserably stunted and broken they were. Must be the heavier snow.
Hey, why didn't you get the Sis to help with your dormer issues, straighten you out? <G>
Splinter sweety,
Them 22" wide 8/4 black walnut boards are still here waitin' for ya. how come ya ain't been by to get em? maybe 8 foot is too long for you? :-) Of course ya'd probably have 'ta come up wid the $25 ea. I paid for 'em. (I bought those after the market went sky high)
Edited 10/22/2002 8:59:50 PM ET by frenchy
how come ya ain't been by to get em?
Ah, the things i have planned for when i get one of these houses sold and free up some $$$'s and time! First i'll buy the new Toyota truck and then i'll come take all that wide walnut off your hands. Save me some cherry, too--it sells for close to $6 wholesale to me.
Do you remember JTango who used to post? I talked to her recently on the phone and she asked me to say "HI" to you if i had the chance; she thinks you're the bee's knees.
Hey splintie,
Don't wait too long, winters a-comin' and the cut-offs pile from my timbers is gettin dwn to where I can actually see over it. I gave my sister a lot of my cherry for a birthday present. ( I'm down to twice my needs right now so maybe I should get busy and buy somemore ;-)
You should see the house she and her hubby are buildin'. Stick built but filled with all the eye candy and charm of a turn of the century lake cottage. Gotta admire her.
She does everything! She built the dormers and they are so correct and tight you' d swear a master carpenter built 'em for his signature piece. This summer she built the stone wall piece by piece.
This is a lady who put herself thru college with honors, after her son was born and she worked her way off wellfare, she almost died of cancer about 10 years ago yet she keeps a schedule that would choke a horse.
She's an executive with a major airline yet weekends she puts on grubbies and lays stone....
say howdie to Jtango an give her my new E-mail address. I need some help wit dem conservatives over at breaktime......
Do you think it is possible to get prices that low in the South? I live in Louisiana and prices here are ranging from $3.80 to $5.80/bd foot in the rough. With the prices you quoted it may be cheaper for me to order some from Minn and have it shipped. Do you have any suggestions where I could find better prices in the south or have a number I could call in the North that might help me with lowering my prices?
Allen
ALLENS51,
Connie at Johnson lumber isn't interested in selling a few boards he needs to sell bunkers of lumber, usually around 1000 bd.ft.
If you or you and a few buddies can use that much I'm certain Connie will gladly sell at those kind of prices. I'm certain that you can find truckers willing to haul it wherever you want it.
If you ask for FAS I promise you that is what you will get, but as for me I'd rather take the much cheaper #2 or mill run because that's where the wood with all the figure and interesting grain winds up. The only time I ask for FAS is when I need something straight grained for the outside of my timberframe.
(did I mention that I'm building a timberframe where the outside timbers are all black walnut?)
Where is Conny Johnson lumber and how do I get in touch with them? Are they located in the South or in the North?
It's Johnson logging in Cannon falls Minnesota. 507 263 5711
Connie is the owner, Dan is his son and Seith is his grandson.
I've gotten the best deals from Connie but he's trying to turn the business over to his son Dan.
An old guy I've bought some land and a building off of in the past is a lumberman. He buys standing timber, logs it and sells the logs to the mill. I was at my storage shop(he lives next door) today, and I started quizzing him on what he could get and for how much. I was particularly looking for some cherry and walnut. He said he is going to buy some logs tomorrow down by the WV/Ohio border ...all cherry. He said" I can get you all the cherry you want, walnut too, I'll get it to the mill, you pay me $700/per thousand bd/ft and $100 to the mill to cut it for you.They'll bunk it, you stick it and dry it, 6 weeks outside, rest inside" He said I could take 500 bd/ft min of each specie. Don't think I can pass this up. I asked the usual q's, will they take all the good stuff etc... he said, for him, they would make it all good," I supply alot of veneer logs, and have for many years, they'll treat you very good"
Search the yellow pages for sawmills as you travel your area. Some of the best are hole in the wall farmers that create some of the most innovative kilns I've ever seen. I haven't bought wood from the lumber yard (other than construction lumber) for at least 20 years.
Generally you have to follow the rule that you take them mill run. Right off the pile uninspected. These guys don't want a pile of culls so you take it as it is.
Here is a method...Be cool, paw thru the pile but don't sort, get an idea of the quality, ask about when it was cut, ask about the new tractor in the field. Find out about the operation, etc. Ask him how he sells it. By the 100,etc. if you are feeling balsy say how much you want for that pile, then ASK what he wants to sell it for.
Generally you can get walnut for a buck to 2 bucks a foot if you aren't picky. The more overhead and advertising the more it costs. I always find mine (mills) in the backwoods. Happy hunting!
Backwoods of where?
Michigan and Wisconsin are my haunts. Wherever you are is where it is at. You just have to get outside the city to find wood.
Put a tank of gas in the pickup and drive. Honestly, if it is easy and obvious all of the well dressed bad mannered people who pick thru piles and insult their sawyer would get a great deal. Like I said before, drive out there (away from city's) stop at a diner, get the blue plate special, say to the watress, "Hon' what kinda pie ya got?" and oh yes a cupa and a directory if you have one. Tip her 20+ percent (cause your meal was cheap anyway) then look under "sawmill" in the yellow pages.
It's easy. Plus you got a great meal for 7 bucks. Take a kid along too. They love these places.
As a final thought. ease up on the "Premium" walnut connotation. IF you really want great stuff when buying one board then hit a big mill. They advertise thru wide regions of the Yellow pages. But you can find joy, beauty and lots of material at the low end. To have success just cut away what ever doesn't look like what you are making.
In and around Greenville SC I saw 3 or four of them when my inlaws lived there. Then again it'll just dirty up your tools.
Edited 10/23/2002 7:40:57 PM ET by Booch
This is a very pleasant way to spend a day, especially with a kid, but it will be a lot more productive if you live someplace where walnut trees actually grow in the wild. I'm not sure I've ever seen a walnut tree in Colorado, and if I have, it was almost certainly in somebody's yard.
Didn't know that Walnut was a non-mountain thing
In most of the state, it's not because of the altitude or even the temperature extremes, it's because we just don't get enough precipitation. With irrigation you can grow a wide variety of hardwoods, and once a stand of trees is established, they create a microclimate that encourages snow not to blow away and rain not to evaporate as fast, so they may not require irrigation most years. But some years it gets really dry, and the droughts come in cycles, so it may be really dry for two or three or ten years in a row. And when it's really dry, there's not enough irrigation water to go around.
Of course I could take two weeks instead of a day and drive a big truck to Wisconsin or Michigan and drive around to all the small town cafes looking for sawmills. In fact, that sounds like a really fun vacation. :)
To my wife's chagrin I always put the car top carriers on the minivan when we go on vacation. I have the puckers in the roof to prove you can get 300 Bd. Ft. of cherry on top of the Yakima roof racks. She rides real low to the road though.
I'd be tempted to go in your neighborhood and load up on the peculiarities of wood you have. From Mesquite to Yew, to aspen & Doug Fir I'm sure there are some beauties you can load up. That is one of the great things about the litle mills is the selection. Once they load the log in the rails they cut it. I've got some picture frames that have sliced bullets exposed in the face. One of the strangest woods I come across is Hemlock. We built a stairway to the lake out of it (which rotted in 10 years) but besides that what do you do with that soft wood? It is real cheap and real clear.
That's exactly what Connie's place is. They mill enough wood to make it their full time job. (About 0ne and a half million bd.ft. yearly). but they need turn-over.
There is a decent sized pile of burls next to the office just waitin' for someone to offer $5 ea. and untill I got all excited about it they litterly threw away whole burl timbers because they wouldn't make grade!
There is nothing old timey or romantic about the mill. Nothing cute for the tourists to bill and coo about, but they do get out some decent wood..
Connie is a decent straightforward guy you can trust and real interesting to talk to (if he has the time)
Hwy 52 south of Cannon falls Minnesota
I've called on most of the sawmills in Minnesota and western wisconsin. some are a lot bigger some are downright unfriendly but most are real decent people trying to make a living........
Some of the mills I hit are the frightening Oil Pull tractor rigs. These involve 30 foot of wide flat belt running off the auxiliary power pulley on an old tractor to a wide pulley hooked to a 36" diameter or better blade. The guarding for these operations is yet to be designed. The guys that own them can remember buying the setup from a guy named lefty as his right arm has been ripped off in an accident. It is a flashback from the turn of the century when factories only had one big belt driving a system in a factory. It was the good old days only for orthapedic surgeons.
One guy even had a kiln designed from a refrigerated meat truck painted black (to absorb the suns heat) with the refrigeration unit physically moved into the insulated section with porting to condense the moisture . That and circulation fans make for a strange but effective kiln.
There isn't any million board feet coming off of these operations. Oh yes I do take the younguns but their hands have the reddened impression of my own cause I never let go of them the entire time. I think they get the impression of caution when I less than graphically describe the power and danger.
For you pros that consume tons of wood this may not be the place, but for the wanna'be's and subsistence woodworkers the education, experience, and value is great. About 1/3 the time the small guys get to be big operators. It is sort of a business incubator for guys with carharts. As I recommend friends to them it gets to be a topic of discussion at the cocktail parties with spouses. It beats the tar out of talking about interest rates and the state of the market. You just have to have a couple of felt pens so you can draw out your plans on cocktail napkins.
Safety at sawmills! Ha! if that's not an oxymoron, I've never heard one. But you are right facinating places to watch.
Can't tell you how many of those places move timbers around with a farm tractor and an old manure bucket loader, suplimented with muscle. Worse still are the guys with woodmizers that they bought second hand! One place had a long hill and the wood mizer was at the bottom. He'd drag his log up the hill to a spot where experiance told him gravity would give it enough speed to climb the short ramp up to the carriage. He had a wedge on a rope and when he got into place he'd jerk the wedge out and down the hill the log rolled slamming to a stop when it hit the carriage!
I picture a water powered saw mill served by a team of horses with logs floating down the river and turned into boards..
Ahhh! dreamer that I am...
PS, if anyone has one like that for sale let me know will you?
Allen: I live in Florida (winters), but while in Holland, MI this summer, I bought some 4/4 black walnut, figured & with a "tiger" grain to it for $7.00 bd/ft. It's the most figured walnut I've ever seen. Great for jewelry boxes.
Jim
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