Rough cut walnut - what to do

[Bill Brush]

I have a rather unusual situation on my hands and I don't know that I have enough "wood savvy" to judge things accurate, so I'm looking for advice.

My parents bought a house about seven years ago. The previous owner had passed away and the heirs let a lot of "stuff" go with the house. Apparently their father had been a woodworker who liked small boxes and clocks and such as my parents passed on to me a lot of itty-bitty screws and nails. As an example I have a wide selection of #0 brass wood screws ranging from 1/4" to 1/2".

In the back shed my parents found what looks to be an entire walnut tree rough cut and laid down for seasoning. We'd estimate a minimum of 15 years in the shed, possibly more.

My parents just sold that house, but my Dad had the moving company move all the wood. This is the first time all of the wood has been accessible and available for good accounting. The stock ranges from fairly thin (under 3/4") to very thick (4"). There is one large chunk that appears to be a complete slice from the trunk about 3" thick.

Now I love working with walnut, but I've never started with lumber that is this close to the tree, so I'm not sure how to judge what's going to be good to work with, and what's going to be a nightmare waiting to happen.

Further limiting me is my lack of a jointer or planer, but I might be able to convince my Dad that he needs those really badly. :)

So anyone have any helpful tips or suggestions for sorting the wheat from the chaff?

[Jim Kountz]

Best thing I can tell you is to have me come pick it up for you. Your better off giving it to me than trying to make tough decisions!! LOL

[John Keeton]

The only "chaff" is a knot so bad you have to avoid it! Walnut is king. Most all of it will be usable to some degree, but look for good clear boards that are a full inch, or close. Use the thinner stuff for making up mouldings, drawer stock, etc.

And yes, talk Dad into the jointer and planer - they will make life much easier!

But, if you are still confused, I am with Jim - just ship it to me! Oh, I guess Jim has the first shot at that and he is willing to come pick it up!

[Bill White]

a planer for sure. I kinda joint using my DeWalt with a slave board and wedges.
Do what it takes to make the walnut useable. That stuff is too nice to let it get away from you.
Bill

[Tom Veatch]

Bill, what John said.

But, if that nasty old stuff is really in your way, I can get there quicker than either Jim or John. I've got the truck fueled, the trailer hooked up, and pointed north, just send directions.

(Jim, John, that OP sounds like a drive-by gloat to me!:D)

[Chris Padilla]

I started with rough walnut on my Tansu (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=92396) project. Check it out.

When working with rough wood, you'll need, at the minimum, a good jointer and a good planer. I have a jointer/planer combo machine (16" wide) that is a workhorse. I'm not sure how I'd handle rough wood without it.

Next on the list would be a bandsaw and/or a table saw. Both would be a luxury but you could get away with just one of them.

Those are the 4 main machines one likely needs to take rough wood into dimensions suitable for making most furniture. If you're into hand tools, there is a whole set of those that you can get into as well but I'd say the learning curve is much higher.

One warning about walnut: it is likely to impact your health somewhat. Without good dust control/collection, some folks find themselves with irritated noses, throats, chests. I have a slight allergic reaction to it if I'm not careful but others simply can't work it and then again others probably have no issues. It is just something to keep in mind that walnut can be problematic.

[John Keeton]

One warning about walnut: it is likely to impact your health somewhat. Without good dust control/collection, some folks find themselves with irritated noses, throats, chests. I have a slight allergic reaction to it if I'm not careful but others simply can't work it and then again others probably have no issues. It is just something to keep in mind that walnut can be problematic.
Chris is right on this! It affects me as well - flu like symptoms, aches, general malaise. A good DC system REALLY helps!

[Rob Cunningham]

The thicker stock I would save for table legs etc. If the wood is all from the same tree, then you should be able to get some nice bookmatching for table tops or cabinet sides. I was lucky enough to find walnut sawn from 1 tree and kept in order when I made this table. I would definitely look into a jointer and planer.

[Joe Chritz]

11 years ago the big slabs were done doing anything they were going to do. Bring it inside to acclimate for a while before using it and start building stuff.

Depending on how the shed was it could be pretty low moisture content already.

If it looks good it is good to go.

Joe

[John Schreiber]

A jointer and a planer are needed unless you want to sell it. After I read the first few lines, I went to see what your location was. I would offer to "help" if I was closer.

[James Hart]

Go see Timmy C or Randy at Lincoln Hardware (or Hardwood, can't remember), they won't steer you wrong.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Bill! I'm a fellow Husker! If it needs a new home, I'd hope that counts for something?:)

How much lumber are you talking about? Maybe a photo? I love milling rough walnut. It looks just plain nasty then as the planner goes over it, fabulous things can appear.

[Bill Brush]

Thanks for all the generous offers of adoption services, but my Dad just got off the phone with me and he said he wanted to hang on to it. :)

Most of it is at his new house South of Kansas City. I have some random bits I grabbed when I was coming back the last time. (Including one piece of what looks to be mahogany for whatever reason.)

I have no way of estimating the total board footage of the stock but he said the movers uncovered some near the bottom he hadn't seen and they were 4x4 by roughly 5-8 ft long. It really does look like the guy had a good-sized walnut tree milled in its entirety.

I know there are some custom mill shops around Lincoln, maybe I can convince one of them to help me out. If that doesn't work I have my trusty Bosch power planer, my table saw, router table, and various and sundry other tools to try to convert it into something other than sawdust and shavings. Maybe if I buy my wife a new house she'll let me buy a jointer and a planer. :)

Thanks again!

Bill

[Lee Koepke]

Congrats.

One of the joys of woodworking ( for me ) is being able to 'relate' to the piece of work somehow. Either the design, the function, or where the wood came from.

Often its not the destination, its the journey. Hope you and/or your dad put that to good use, and when you do, please share !!

[Gary Herrmann]

Tell your Dad to hang on to those walnut 4x4s. Bed posts, ripping them into table legs, turned boxes, the list goes on and on.

[david kramer]

Bill,

You can get away with not having any heavy tools if you have a plunge router. You'll need to secure the walnut to a flat table and build a sled on two straight, flat parallel rails. So the problem becomes getting flat rail, eg square tubing. You can use this setup to joint and plane the faces. You can edge joint on a router table by offsetting the fences ever so slightly and aligning the router bit with the outfeed fence. If this is not making sense, check out "Woodworking with the Router" by Hylton and Matlack (may be available at your library).

Or maybe search for a creeker in your area and ask them if they can help you joint/plane. There's gotta be a good samaritan on here within an hour's drive of just about every town in America :).

David

[Mike Parzych]

You're sitting on a gold mine, in my opinion. A big pile of walnut is one thing, but if it's one big tree it's worth more because it opens up the possibility of book-matches (consecutive cuts from a log.) In woodworking terms that's a boule.

Having been air-dried the color will be as good as it gets. And since walnut color varies from tree to tree and region to region, you'll be able to make pieces with the same color throughout.

Most millwork or woodworking commercial shops will have a large surface sander - Time-Saver is one of the common brands. Often these will go as wide as 36" and they usually charge an hourly rate. They should be able to tell you how many of your pieces they could do in an hour. One near me charges $60 an hour for the sander.

In any case, that's worth holding on to until you get a planer yourself. Finds like that don't come down the pike very often. Like never, in my life.

[Greg Cole]

But, if that nasty old stuff is really in your way, I can get there quicker than either Jim or John. I've got the truck fueled, the trailer hooked up, and pointed north, just send directions.

(Jim, John, that OP sounds like a drive-by gloat to me!:D)

Race is on, KC might be a bit closer than Wichita....;) 3 & 4" thick walnut has my name all over it. Not too mention an air dried flitch!

If you can't swing the means for the machines to dress the material, it would be worth it to have someone do that for you. There's some Creekers not "too far" from you that would be willing to work the stock for a nominal charge... say a 6 pack.

[David Keller NC]

Bill - I do a fair amount of my own lumber cutting from trees (i.e., take the tree down, slab it up, stack and sticker it, and wait for it to air dry). My first word of advice is don't surface all, or even the majority, of the wood at one go.

You should only surface what you need for the particular project at hand. This is partly why WWs tend to have their own planer and jointer - surfacing a large amount of wood without the specific need for it is a waste, because the wood will conintue to move with changes in humidity, and what was straight on the day you milled it won't be by the time you get around to using it, thus you will have to straighten/plane it twice.

From the standpoint of air-dried walnut, you've quite a prize if it was a big tree. Most walnut available to the average woodworker has been steamed to get the color to move from the heartwood to the white sapwood. While that increases the yield, expecially from young trees, it also considerably dulls the color of the heartwood to a gray, muddy mess. Air-dried is much prefered for that reason.

Second piece of advice (and it's probably too late to do this easily since it was moved by a moving company) - don't mix the pieces up. It's important to have the grain match up with adjacent boards, so a WW will typically keep the tree stacked and stickered in the order that it was slabbed up by the saw. It sounds like the fellow you inherited this from was an experienced woodworker, who recognized that he would need 4/4, 8/4, and 16/4 stock. Typically, that's done by slabbing the outer parts of the trunk into the 16/4 "posts", and the interior (close to the center) into the wider 4/4 boards. At the very least, you want to keep the 4/4 boards together in the order that they came from the tree so that you can make a wide panel or a table top that's "book-matched".