Rotary Cut Walnut Veneer

[Stewart Lang]

Just send him the link to this thread. I think he'll have a better understanding then

[J.R. Rutter]

Make sure he doesn't mean rift cut. That is the trend here for the past couple of years for walnut, cherry, and white oak. "Let's mimic the look of textured laminate using real wood," seems to be the thinking...

[Alan Lightstone]

I don't think you can inform an architect in the same way you inform a client. But some that are pretty imperious get
a lot more collegial when they have proclaimed themselves into a jam!

I informed mine with a pink slip. Best decision we made on our project.

[Rich Aldrich]

That is a bit different We don't have good access or markets for rotary pealed walnut veneer.

We rotary peal about 13 million square feet of maple and birch per month. With the log sizes these days, that amounts to 300 logs per day. The good stuff is book matched and spliced into full sheets. Its nice when we get into some curly and Birdseye. We get all grades from the logs. Everything from A sheets to #4 backs. Most of it is used for hardwood plywood skins. Some is used in making drums and more specialty high end office furniture.

We also cut 70,000 bdft per day - hardwood lumber. Back in the day, Birdseye was considered 3B lumber, the lowest grade. In the UP of Michigan you can still find old hardwood floors with Birdseye. Now it is a specialty and is the highest priced lumber we sell. My favorite is maple with bark pocket. The common species we cut are hard maple, soft maple, cherry, beech, birch, ash and oak.

The amazing thing is we don't slice, but it really take a big investment to get into it. Its always the scare of getting into a new market. Sliced is where the booked sheets look incredible.

We do sort logs for the sliced market and sell those logs to the sliced manufacturers.