I have been blessed with black walnut trees on the land that I live on. I have one in particular that forks several times and from the character of the bark near these forks it looks like the wood would be very nice. If I should cut it for a gunstock, how thick should I cut it for blanks? How long to air dry? Are there good ways to judge wood before it is cut as a tree? Any help is appreciated. D

Dhunter:

It is almost impossible to predict what walnut will look like from the outside of the tree, but crotches do tend to make for some interesting grain patterns. If I was going to use them for rifle stocks, green, I would cut them at least 2 5/8 inches thick. You will need to coat the ends of the slabs or blanks or however you cut it, with some kind of sealer to inhibit too fast drying and the attendant checking(cracks). You can use a couple of smeared on coats of Latex paint, roofing cement, or the old standby, wax. The old rule of thumb is that it takes a year an inch of thickness, and, unless you live in a desert area, for gunstock work, this is probably a minimum. You can hurry it up by putting it inside where it is warmer and dryer( but not hot, key is low humidity levels and slightly evlevated air temps). But it is still going to take a long while.

Unless I was going to have to remove a dying tree or one that had to come down for some other reason, or unless you have a lot of use for walnut, or unless you need several dozen blanks, I would strongly recommend that you buy your blanks from numerous suppliers that I can email you with, or they usually have some cheaper stuff on ebay. BIG difference is that you get to see the grain patterns, grain flow, etc. before you buy and you don't have a lot of labor in the piece. Getting from a tree to an acceptable blank takes a fair amount of labor, a lot of time and space, and some luck with the quality of the tree's wood. Remember, the cost of the blank, is just the starting point, so it is worth it to use some decent wood. Unless you are using very expensive Turkish or other very high grade Walnut, the blank will probably cost less than 1/4 of the total cost of the project. And, even if you are planning on doing it yourself, if you value your time, it will be even more expensive. Good luck.

Speaking strictly from my own experience with green walnut [black], it checks like crazy if you let it dry too fast -- by this, I mean splits / cracks running parallel to the grain flow, usually from the ends. I learned to seal the end grain, as discussed above; simple latex paint works well. You can probably expect more checking from thicker pieces -- that's the trend I noticed. I would not recommend putting it in a hot, dry environment to speed drying, as this may increase splitting -- 'slow & easy.'

Air dried walnut is less brittle than kiln dried (probably a good thing for a stock), and supposedly of a slightly different color. I steam-bend shaker boxes from thin strips, and can tell when somebody lied about air drying - CRACK! I can't see the color difference, though.

I've never made anything for a gun with it -- only furniture & boxes.

Trying this route will drive you nuts, but when you get it done, it will be satisfying. I think of that almost every night when I go to bed -- when I first saw my walnut 4 poster, it was a tree in a farmer's fencerow.

Good luck,
Todd

I have been at several stock blank projects, from running the chain saw, through the sawmill, into the drying shed, waiting, waiting, waiting for the cure, and at the duplicator and the final finishing. A few tips for starting with a standing tree:

Carefully survey the tree, limbs, crotch, etc, and plan just where you want the chain saw blade to cut. Don't forget the stump and the root bulb underground. This is where some incredible feather wood is located. And don't cut too close to the ground, you want a bit of straight grain above the feather. With a good tree it is worth the time to peel bark and look for grain, and to dig around the root wad to see just how far the bulb goes underground.

Get a tree climber to go up and prune off anything that is too small or in the way. A bucket truck is ideal for this. Mark where the saw cuts should be with orange marking paint.

Think about where the tree will fall. It is wise to cut off some of the limbs (at the previously placed paint marks) and lower them with a rope. And is is wise to make a falling pad with brush and small limbs for the main tree to fall on, to help reduce breaking and splitting.

Once you have the tree on the ground, get humping and saw it up quickly, and get the blocks out of the sun into a storage shed. Better yet is to go straight to the sawmill. A portable mill like a WoodMizer is the best friend a stock blank cutter can ever have. Time is your enemy here, as both checking and staining occur quickly with wood left out in the open.

Get those blocks cut into blanks quickly. And don't the blanks soak up sunlight, or get wet. They need to go into the drying shed as rapidly as possible. Seal the ends. Put stickers between the blanks (Stickers are just wood sticks about 1/2 inch square that you rip on a table saw. Used to keep the blanks seperate and allow air circulation. We use Yellow Cedar.)

Our drying shed has a dehumidifer and a small amount of heat and circulating fans, it runs at about 75 degrees. (This is needed here on the extremely wet Olympic Peninsula of WA state where it rains and snows a lot). Thinking about moving to a hot desert for better curing.

Buy a good electronic moisture meter, the kind that has probes you can insert way into a blank. We cure to about 10-11 percent, then out of the shed. But, gotta be careful in our area, if the blanks are left in a cold shed or garage, they will pull moisture back in and be at 20 percent or so in a couple of weeks. So, we have to keep them in a heated shop or house. A spare bedroom is idea for storing cured blanks.

Some trees will have good grain, some will not. And some will have a few incredible areas of figure. Sort of like a poker game, you don't know what you have until the blanks are cut. I have made some nice expensive firewood!

After you have some cure on the blanks and they are not wet, pull some out of the shed and run a belt sander over them. Then a finishing belt, and soak in some True Oil. This lets you see the grain. We take the prize blanks to a cabinet shop and run them through a panel sander. If they are rough, go through a planer first. Careful with a planer, it can tear or chip the wood. (When you first cut the blanks, don't make them to small. You need a lot of area to run a template over to pick out the best way to make the outline cuts with a bandsaw. Make a template out of plexiglass so you can see the grain as you position the template.)

Fire an email off to me (star@olypen.com). We may be interested in your wood. Where are you located? I am guessing CA or OR.

Good luck!

[This message has been edited by John Ricks (edited 12-12-2001).]

D Hunter,

I would strongly suggest you cut a deal with a company that specializes in this type of work. Cutting a tree down that will be used for stock is not easy, and cutting blanks is an art all in itself.

Work out a deal with a pro wherein you slit the wood, they provide labor and will also age your blanks for you - at least until its okay for you to take them home and put them in the attic.

Steve

Dhunter, there is a tremendous amount of satisfaction in going from the tree to the stock with a piece you found still growing.
I've done this twice but I'm not sure I'll do it again.
The trees we took down from a yard were pretty large, one was 54" across the stump and the other was 38" across the stump.
The best wood comes from the biggest trees. This is IMHO because the weight of the upper tree (above the crotch) introduces stresses into the trunk that causes the figure to grow and shape in the grain. Another place that figure can get spectacular is where the black walnut root is grafted onto an English walnut tree for moisture and fungus resistance in wet climates. This is fairly common in Oregon and Washington orchards.

John Ricks made some great points. Take your time and lay out the tree for the best cuts. Don't cut the crotch of the tree until you are absolutely ready- I lost some fabulous wood in my learning curve by getting in a hurry.
Check around for mobile cutters with sawmills like the Woodmizer or Mitey Mite (made in Portland). Or think about investing in one- the base units run around $4,000 and go up from there. Around here, there are several guys who will either come to your place to cut your logs (the route I took), or will cut your logs on their saw carriage after you deliver them.
However, this second method has 2 distinct disadvantages. If you don't trust the cutter, be there when the wood is cut- otherwise you could lose your best blanks, and your investment as he "culls" out his self appointed "share". The other disadvantage is handling a log as big as these can be. The biggest piece of the larger tree I cut down was the trunk and crotch. This piece was only about 9' long, but it weighed in excess of 7,000 lbs. Handling it with a Case backhoe was all it could handle, and the trailer it was hauled on was straining with a couple smaller logs and this one.
If you plan carefully, have access to the tools and help you will need, and have the ambition, this can be a very rewarding way to get some gorgeous stockwood and the remaining wood will be relatively easy to sell to any hardwood store if cared for properly. Also, one other trick I learned from an oldtimer- try to cut the trees in the winter if possible. The cold weather will slow down the drying at first until it stabilizes a bit, and the sap won't be running, so the wood will be more stable and won't stain as easily. If you have any question, just shoot me an e-mail- Have fun- Sheister

Holtz brings up several good points. Dropping big trees can get you killed! We have the luxury of loging equipment (in the Grand Pacific NW Tradition)and a couple of experienced tree fallers. Plus a whole log sawmill and a portable. Hardwoood trees can be difficult to predict where they will fall due to the uneven weight distribution of the big branches, plus the wind factor can get tricky. Another name for big hardwood trees is "Widow Makers". Don't linger at the stump!

you can sell one of thoes big trees for about $50,000.00 or better...Now you could buy a pretty nice piece of Turkish for half that from me ..

Black walnut makes nice funiture, two piece shotgun stocks and is nice on winchester M-94's, and thats about it...It is heavy and very porus..blanks are near impossible to sell.

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

Ray - I disagree on that statement about black walnut. Im sitting here looking at two blanks. Both are black walnut and they are as fine grained as the 3 turkish walnut blanks that I have. I have worked with some black walnut that is like you say, very porous. I think it would be fair to say that the workablility of any walnut can vary drastically from blank to blank. Depending on where and how it was grown.

Bill,
I'm sure there are some good black walnut blanks around and I was talking in generalities...but for my part you can have even the good ones....I'll just stay with French and Turkish, its light, dense, hard as woodpecker lips and has the color I like...and it does not devalue the finished product...Try putting that nice black walnut on a 416 Rigby and getting the big price!

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

My Dad is going to sell the old family farm next year, and he asked me if there is anything I wanted off the farm before he sold it. The first thing that came to mind was cutting down the walnut tree that I killed my first squirrel in for some stock blanks for a few of my rifles. He told me to go ahead. What time of year do you do this, January I suppose? If you cut them 2 5/8" thick how wide and long do you cut them for sporter style stocks? Should they be thicker if a cheek piece is planned for the stock? How long does it take to kiln dry a stock blank or is that not the way to go? Any info would be of help. This tree is only about 20" on the stump but it has been that way every since I can remember and that first squirrel was 41 years ago. Even Dad says it has grown very little in all the years he owned this property. Would the slow growth mean the grain should be tight, or does that have any bearing on it at all?

Shoot Safe, Shoot Straight.....RiverRat

Be careful of the tree that has been around an old homestead or the edge of a field or pasture. These trees almost always contain nails, wire, bullets or other metal. One quick way to ruin a saw mill blade.

Riverrat, a 20" tree isn't going to yield a lot of gunstock blanks, but the only way to find out is to cut it, I guess. Keep in mind you'll lose the sapwood, and the heartwood must be avoided, so that leaves a fairly small section of log to get wood from.

Also, a tree that is only 20" and hasn't grown much in that much time probably won't have much but very straight grain wood, which is wonderful for furniture, but not so great for gunstocks, as far as appearances go. If you do cut it down, I would cut the blanks between 2 3/4" and 3" thick and about 48" long x about 8" wide to leave plenty of room to lay out the stock, especially if there are any imperfections in the blank later.
This would be a good time to cut the tree down, seal the ends, and sticker/stack it to dry in a cool, dry place so it has the rest of the winter to slowly dissipate the moisture and stabilize a bit before the warmer weather of the summer months.

A cheap treasure finder will tell you if there are any nails in it, and if there are I bet none of them are above 5 1/2 feet high. Someone told me that the better studfinders also find metal, but you would be betting a lot that it would actually work reliably.

Also, even though you just want sporter blanks, you might want to cut a couple longer so if you ever get an urge to build a full stock Pennsylvania or Kentucky rifle you can do that too.

No one likes ruining a saw blade, but if you use a Woodmizer band saw mill or similar, then cutting possible metal containing wood is not as big an issue, safety or money wise. Use detectors, of course, if you have them, but I can tell you from experience that it is easy to miss something, particularly on the first few cuts. Costs $20 and 5 minutes to change a blade. However, then you have to decide how to proceed and that often entails some head scratching. LOL

As noted above, be really careful about hardware grown into the trees -- fence parts, hinges, nails, chain lengths, etc. I saw a nice tree which had almost totally engulfed a five foot length of two inch angle iron. Another couple of years and the iron will be out of sight, awaiting someone with a chainsaw to come along. My brother and I had trouble splitting a maple crotch so took a chain saw to it. Turns out a tree surgeon had implanted a 3/4" wrought iron rod across the arms of the Y to fix an old split. The chain saw actually chewed up the rod pretty good and the chain was okay -- wrought iron is quite soft. Trees that grow on high and dry ground tend to have much denser grain than a tree that grows in low and wet ground; the slower the growth, the more dense the grain.