A friend of mine has a few walnut trees on his property that have to go. I have not seen the trees yet, but would like a little information before I go and see them. I think the trees may be a bit less then 2 feet in diameter. I also do not know the species of walnut nor will I when I see the trees, as I am not familiar with the different varieties.

What is the minimum diameter of tree that can be used to make stock blanks? I assume the best figured wood is where the branch forks off the tree? Would the best pieces come from either side of the crotch, or just below it in line with the centerline of the tree or above with the fore end facing the top of the tree? How about the part that is below ground? Should the stump be cut fairly high so that it can be dug out and also cut up? How should the log be opened up? Should the log be first cut in half lengthwise and then the grain examined and then the next cuts planned. If the trees are less than 2 feet through they are probably too small to be quarter sawn.

Does anyone know if the portable band saw mills could handle something like this or should I go to someone with a large head rig type mill. I do have an Alaskan mill which attaches to a power saw, but I think that it would be a very slow process. Used to have a portable saw mill (circular) but sold that years ago.

Thanks, Hart

hart,

Something to consider is that these trees are not worth all the work that is needed to turn them into stock blanks. If you want a few stock blanks for yourself that is one thing. If you are planning on making a profit from this opportunity that is quite another.

Peter B is right. The limbs are usually cut back and the tree pushed over. If the tree is dropped with the limbs attached, the stress tears apart the valuable crotch wood and turns that part of the tree into firewood. So you are going to have to hire a bucket truck to remove the limbs in preparation. (@ $100.00 an hour ?)

Ok, now lets dig out the roots. With a shovel. And then cut them with a chain saw, (in the dirt, rocks...) ( $20.00 for chain)

Now lets bring in something to push down the tree. What is that going to cost? $75.00 an hour?

Now you can get it cut up, (yes Woodmisers can easily handle this). Now find a place to stack and sticker the blanks inside for about 6-8 months (depending on your humidity). Then haul the whole works to a kiln and pay them to kill dry it if you want. Or let it air dry for another 2-3 years before they are usable.

Don�t ask me how I know all this!!

Consider all of this and then check out what you can get a blank shipped right to your house for.

So, if you want a few blanks for yourself or friends? You describe the trees as a little less than 2 feet. And it sound like the trees need to be removed. (not requiring a major operation) My opinion? Forget about the limbs, etc. There is likely not enough heartwood there to mess with. Cut the stump as low as possible and have the butt portion cut into gun stock blanks and have the rest of the tree cut into 5/4 or 4/4 for dimensional lumber. 4/4 is the minimum that is needed to give you a dry planed 3/4 inch board.

Hope this helps.

pdhntr

(7 days, 10 hrs, 0 min.)

There is a real satisfaction that comes from using the lumber from a tree that you cut down and invested your time and effort into. I say go ahead and do it. It might be cheaper to buy a blank but not nearly as satisfying in the end.

Black Walnut is poor gunstock wood for the most part, and granted their are some exceptions to this rule, but they are rare..

To me this would be and exercise in futility unless they were old thin shelled walnut trees that WERE NOT grown on a ditch bank near a water source....

But I am really picky about the kind of wood I use on my guns, I am not big into marble cake and color so much as I am in to properly layed out piece of straight grained wood that is hard as ivory and quarter sawn and I like some contrasting streaks for color if they go along with the above. Above all it must be dry before it is made into a gunstock.

Also cutting and curing wood is a real science with a littel voo doo and black magic combined it seems.

Ray,
I definately concur that black walnut is not the best choice for stocks. But if a person selects the wood carefully and it is properly cured it can make some beautiful stocks. It just requires more fussiness throughout the whole process. And its more open pores require more work in the finishing. But it can be worth the effort. I am curently doing a stock for a Win 94 that I had rebarreled to 38/55 from some beautiful feather crotch American Black Walnut that I cut down myself. If I ever get the thing finished I will share the pics. It was definately worth the effort.

And you are right on when it comes to wood cutting, drying, curing. It takes a special talent to get it right.

Yes you have to remove the limbs.

However us Elk Hunters up here just use a block and hang it from the top of the tree and then use the old 4x4 and winch to grapple the limb in question and have the other person cut the limb and then lower the limb to the ground with the 4x4 and winch.

I have been the person in the tree cutting the limb many

times in my youth.

It is amazing what you can do in your twenties, looking back I am lucky to still be in one piece, as this is dangerous work.

Taking an tree down and sawing is a royal pain in the you know what.

I would not do it now unless the tree was given to me.

Jim Wisner

Custom Metalsmith.

M1Tanker, black walnut is not the best but it is far from a poor gun stock material. It is very good wood, thin shelled, aka english, french, transplated Aussie/french, is somewhat better, but the black will do very well. It is a bargain because folks without a lot of knowledge shy away from it. I personally would rather work with english but a good black blank is a close second.

I did this drill once. Had about a 2-foot diameter walnut tree on a lot that my folks were building a house on. I got nostalgic about it and decided I would get some stock blanks from it. This tree had grown up in a fertilized and watered yard. I whacked the tree down and cut up chunks in what I thought was the proper length for blanks. Noticed from the beginning there wasn't much heartwood. Found a sawyer and had him cut it. He didn't know much about stock blanks either. Got a couple "blanks" and got some 1" boards out of it too.

Two years later the boards were so twisted the only thing I could salvage was kindling for the fireplace. The "blanks" are destined to become handrailings for a spiral staircase.

I didn't know enought to know I didn't know.

Costomstox,
I wasnt implying that it was a poor stock wood at all. But compared to density and hardness of some of the other walnuts it lacks some of their qualities. I personally think that if a person is looking for outstanding color and figure BW is impossible to beat. Especially for the cost compared to the other walnuts. I have a couple BW stocks that are amazing in figure and they have proper grain layout also. I paid a fraction of what it would cost in the other walnuts. And the others cant match the swirling reds and blacks or peacock figure that black has.

Thanks for all the replies. I am going to have a look at the trees and if they look like they might make some good blanks I may tackle the project. Maybe I can find someone with a mill that is interested in some walnut, and make some kind of deal where I end up with a few blanks.

Is there a way I can tell if it is English or plain black walnut. When you say thin shelled, do you mean the soft covering around the nut itself, that comes off when ripe?

Thanks, Hart

M1Tanker, I wasn't implying that you were, sorry if you got that impression.



PeterB. Claro is not the same as Black Walnut and never was. It is a totally separate species. Juglans Hindsii, it was found in California in 1847 in isolated concentrations by a botanist named Richard Hinds, thus it's latin name. Claro is often called California Black walnut but it is not American Black Walnut, Juglans Nigra. And Bastogne is a cross between Claro and English.



Hart, to be blunt, I think you are pissing in the wind with a 2 foot wide tree. I have cut a few trees and will not do it again. The trees I have run into of that diameter do not have enough heartwood to be worthwhile. And everyone else considers the white wood, whether you call it sap wood or not, to be very detrimental to the grade of the wood. If you have an opportunity to see the leaf structure or the nuts you can tell what it is. The black walnut has 15 to 23 leaflets on a stem that is 12" to 24" long. The english walnut has 7 to 9 leaflets on a stem that is 8 to 16" long and the last (terminal) leaf on an English leaf system is larger than the lateral ones.

Chic,

Thank you for straightening me out on this one:

Quote:

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Claro is not the same as Black Walnut and never was. It is a totally separate species. Juglans Hindsii, it was found in California in 1847 in isolated concentrations by a botanist named Richard Hinds, thus it's latin name. Claro is often called California Black walnut but it is not American Black Walnut, Juglans Nigra. And Bastogne is a cross between Claro and English

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I had always understood Claro Walnut to have been a commercial hybrid cross between American Black Walnut and English Walnut. The wood being commerially grown for the "luxury" and gunstock industries. Bastogne was a further hybridization of these species. My erroneous understanding was that the Claro hybrid was "designed" to provide a wood with the striking color contrast of English walnut and the superior density of American Black walnut.

Over time all western American Black walnut came to be erroroneously called Claro walnut. When in fact, the vast majority of so-called "CLaro" walnut trees were in fact native American Black walnut. The American Black walnut grew much faster in the west, aka, stronger than it did in the east due to the climatic conditions. Thus the western American black walnut was typically harder and denser than either it's cousin the eastern American Black walnut or the hybrid Claro walnut.

Again, I thank you Chic for showing me the error of my ways! Your explanation seems far more plausible to me. That being the obvious commericalization of a small grove of a unique western American walnut sub-species.

ASS_CLOWN

Hart,
if it was solely for myself, and the tree grew on a limited water area, i'd have to give it a try.. you can make an A frame and lower the tree, block and tackle, if you are willing...

i dont think it'll render enough wood for but a couple stocks.

you know, I wonder if hickory or ash make for decent stocks? Ive made drums from slab cut ash, and the grain pattern is great, but very yellow

jeffe

[
you know, I wonder if hickory or ash make for decent stocks? Ive made drums from slab cut ash, and the grain pattern is great, but very yellow

jeffe

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The Tiger Hunt stocks I listed above carries curly ash blanks. I purchased a 2 piece blank of amazing fiddleback. I have never seen anything like it. Its going to go on a Stevens Favorite I am restoring. (I am doing one for each of my kids and me and the wife) It is still not shaped yet but the fiddleback is more striking than anything I have ever seen in maple. And it is the hardest stuff I have ever seen.

Jeffe-

A lot, not all, hickory becomes "brashy" (a pseudo-technical lumberman's term) in the heartwood as it grows enough to be a useful size for gunstocks. "Brashy" means that it becomes brittle or crumbly (not especially wanted).

Ash will, also, to a certain extent. Ash and hickory both have a tendancy to small heartwood in relation to the total diameter of the bole, limiting the amount of usable gunstock material. Both tend to split easier than walnut.

I have sawn a couple of blanks of sassafras that are drying now. They are becoming VERY light in weight and color, but the figure is very good. With stain, they should make a very nice stock for a light-weight rifle.

Chic- I have started whittling on that blank of English that I bought from you for my 404. It is HARD and HEAVY, but seems to "work" very well (no unexpected splintering like you get with Claro).

Bob

Thanks again for all the comments. Chic, you are probably right in that it may not be worth all the trouble, especially on such small trees. I am still going to have a look at them, just to satisfy my curiosity.

I have learned a lot about walnut from these posts. Now I know what kind of walnut trees my father planted on the farm about 20 years ago. He packed the seedlings back from Europe in his suitcase, while on vacation.

[image]http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/senior/fruits/images/small/walnutenglishblack[/image]

Tried to post a picture of the difference in the leaves but does not seem to work.

here ya go.. you forgot the .jpg

Thanks, Jeff

There has been mention of seasoning and to seal the ends with wax. However, the gunsmith I used to deal with (now deceased) advised me that seasoning like that just seals in the warps. He advised me to sink any stock blanks in a small stream for a couple of years to wash out all of the sap (and the warps).

I also wonder if is best to cut any tree down in winter when the sap is not up in the tree. Probably would be less likley to check as the moisture content would be lower.

Okay I will jump in here on the size of that tree - leave it be. Its not even close to being big enough for stock blanks. I know where there is a black walnut tree with a 37 " diameter trunk. So I called up Paul Dressel and asked him if he would help me cut the s.o.b. down. He said.......well.....ya might get one or two blanks. That pretty much settled it for me. Paul told me he wont even look at a tree unless its 42" diameter. There are 6" of sap wood that have to be removed - on EACH SIDE (if I remember correctly). He also told me that the very center (heart) is not usable....so that has to go as well. You dont end up with much when your done on a 24" tree. Paul has cut a few trees down in his time. You might get some lumber out of the tree but I think in the long run you will do a lot of work for nothing. Good luck to you if you decide to go for it.

If there is 6" of sap wood on these trees there will be very little heartwood left especially if you want to stay away from the very center of the tree also. I have never seen a walnut log and was hoping for only 1 to 2" of sap wood. With that much sap wood I probably could not get any edge grain blanks from these trees. I'd think that the figure would not be as good with flat grain.

Unfortunately all the trees are coming down to make room for a bunch of new houses.

Hart

If you can rent or borrow a portable milling machine you would be able to get some very nice planks/boards from this tree.

I realize you were asking about stock material, but American walnut makes incredible plank flooring.
People don't use it much due to the cost.

If you have the energy, cut the boards yourself, and store them in a dry place with weights or tension bands holding them together to minimize the warping as they dry.

You can alwasy sell them later if you don't like 'em.

Garrett

I'm not a stockmaker or logger but have cut some black walnut. A 24" diameter log at the butt is a good sized walnut in a normally shaped tree. I would be surprised if there is more than 2" of sapwood so that leaves about 20" of brown wood to work with. Even if slab sawn there ought to be two decent quarter sawn blanks in the center slab of each log section.

I salvaged a small(by above standsrds) walnut that was struck by lightning at my grandmom's farm many years ago. It was about 20" or so at the butt. I carried a couple of logs to a mill and had them slab sawn. I picked out the 'best' slabs and kept them for about 20 years. When I had a custom rifle built I sent this piece of wood to the riflemaker. The stock turned out to be beautiful with nice tight fiddleback throughout. One side is better than the other but I just wanted the wood for sentimental reasons anyway. I had made some knive scales and muzzleloader accessories previously and noticed the wood had a great tiger grain. So I would submit that a very nice stock can be made from a smaller walnut tree. And you may get lucky. Plateau Hunter