Big walnut rounds--best way to prep

[John C Bush]

Scored on walnut rounds and want to maximize "recovery". Big, free walnut is hard to come by out here and I want to minimize
waste. How should I section these hunks?? Note the sapwood is on one side only and I'm hoping that will make an interesting contrast
for NE bowls. I am somewhat new to large bowl turning and strategic blank harvesting so any suggestions would be appreciated.
Max dia. is 36" and they are ~18" thick. Is this a good excuse to invest in a coring system?? Thanks, JCB

[Paul Williams]

Only one example from my experience, certainly no expert on this. I received several large rounds of walnut 3 years ago. I cut the pith out, and then cut square blanks that were 2 inches larger than the swing of my lath, and 7 to 14 inches tall. I coated both ends with anchor seal and stored in my garage and off the floor. I have used about half of the blanks. So far I have had very little cracking and those that did crack were still large enough to use for smaller bowls or hollow forms. The rounds were large enough that the cuts to remove the pith left 4 inch or wider spindle blanks. There was no loss in those blanks.
Good luck you have some very good looking wood.

[Brice Rogers]

I looked in the wood database and see that walnut has a tangential to radial shrink ratio of only 1.4 - - so it is well behaved wood and if you take the necessary steps, you are unlikely to see much cracking.

Paul's advice is good. But I usually process my wood a bit further. I'll take the logs and (like Paul) cut out the pith. Then take the resulting half sections (D's) and cut them into round disks for bowls, platter, dishes, etc. But I also try to rough turn a bunch, keeping the wall thickness uniform and about 10% of the diameter to allow for shrinkage. Then I weigh them, mark their weight and wrap the edges and end grain with stretch-wrap plastic film (picked up that tip from Reed Gray aka Robo Hippy - - it seems to work). Anchor seal would be another good way.

If you leave them as sliced cylinders ("D's" when looking on end), they'll be pretty thick and will dry very very slowly. I've heard people comment that it takes a year or more per inch of thickness to dry. (Of course it depends on your environment/humidity). That is why I try to rough turn to get to a thickness of perhaps an inch or two.

You may also want to experiment with doing a "once-turned" negative edge. Walnut is probably unlikely to warp very much. Turning when wet is REALLY enjoyable too.

The sapwood on just one side is unusual. You may want to double check it to make sure that it is not just punky wood in that area. Hard to tell from the pictures.

[John C Bush]

Thanks for the tips. The sapwood is solid and as expected less dense than the heartwood. I turned a couple of bowls from branches ~ 10" in dia.
and the sapwood turned fine. May be interesting with the larger stock.