First walnut in the queue to saw

[Chris Padilla]

Awesome! I just LOOOOVE walnut!

[Danny Hamsley]

Well done!

[Dennis Peacock]

Love that stuff.!!!!

[Todd Burch]

Thanks Danny. Next time to cut more of it will be Feb 27 - we'll cut from dawn to dusk.

[Todd Burch]

The walnut is almost all cut up. Part of one log to complete and a couple other chunks to slab out as well. Customer has already picked up the first trailer load from this kiln guy, and has also taken his second trailer load to be dried. I saw the first trailer load after it was dry and it looked great. Boards were flat, they had a good color and no checking or splitting.

This is the last log we're cutting. It was the lower trunk section. As pictured on the track loader it is 7.5' long.

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It was 9', but he wanted some cookies, so we cut 18" off the base, where the hollow hole was smallest, carried it over to the saw and made 5 cookies. They measure about 41" narrow diameter x 54" wide diameter x 3 1/4" thick. They cut really well with the rip chain. I was surprised.

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And, the last log queued up to saw. We've since cut the top section off, from which we'll get 4 slabs: 2 @ 3", 1 @ 2" and 1 @ ~1.25". The 3"ers will be 34" to 37" wide by 7.5' long.

[Cody Colston]

I do believe you are having a blast with that swing mill and slabber. That's some cool Walnut.

How man total BF do you think you got from that tree?

[Todd Burch]

Estimating probably around 2200-2300 bf.

~1400 bf in first kiln run.
~750 is second kiln run
~200 bf left to cut.

[Todd Burch]

Here are some pics of the last few cuts and the remaining logs to be cut.

First, the stack of 5 cookies. We sealed these, both sides, immediately after each cut. The last round in the background we went ahead and sealed and saved. It was the top cut, so the thickness goes from pretty thin to 5" thick. It was the stump cut that whoever felled the tree made.

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In the above pic, at the top left, you can just see another chunk that needs to be cut. It's about a 16" square hunk of wood, about 2' long before it tapers into what made up the inside of the hollow part of the log. Not sure how we'll cut that. The owner might just leave it whole and dry it and sell it to a turner for large bowls. There should be some good figure in it.

Here's the remaining part of the hollow butt section. It needs to be flipped over and leveled up so the red crayon line lines up with the saw chain for the final slabbing cuts. We will get some real nice slabs. The other end of the log has plenty of meat since the hollow hole is a lot smaller.

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Here's the top of the log we cut off and the board /slabs we took off after cutting the top off. The top will go back on the mill to get the additional 4 slabs out of it. We got 8 thick boards out of the middle edges (two are not shown).

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Here's the piece I am really looking forward to cutting. Part of this wood will make up his payment to me. Gun stock blanks will be a comin'!

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[Cody Colston]

Todd, those aren't cookies you cut, they're doughnuts! Don't have to worry about the pith cracking, either.

[Scott T Smith]

Sweet work Todd!

[Todd Burch]

Finally finished up slabbing the walnut tree. We cut 26 slabs on Friday. It was an awesome day of production. I have a bit of carving boards out with the swing blade from the top slabs and then I'll be done with this sucker.

I'll take pictures of the stacks on Sunday. It's a lot of wood. There was a surprising amount of gorgeous wood in this tree. Tons of curl, tons of crotch and we found some awesome quilted burl too. We cut those in 4" x 14" x ~20" pieces.

[Todd Burch]

Here are the last pics I'm going to post about cutting this log up. Close to 3500bf by all estimates. It was a lot of work cutting around the hollow sections.

I call this the trumpet. It's part of my portion. I thought it was cool looking. Nice figure too. It's a small piece (in the scheme of things). Car keys for scale.

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This is one of the 3 burl blocks produced. Also part of my portion.

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These are the two remaining stacks that need to be kiln dried.

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These are pictures of the two kiln dried trailer loads. The first two pics are the same trailer load from two angles.

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