Best way to deal with a fresh walnut log.

fire bear said:

Once upon a time I knew a lot more about drying wood than I do now and I agree that the safest way to dry a small batch of any wood species will be by properly air drying but there is nothing wrong with kiln drying so long as the correct drying schedule is followed. A commercial kiln drying schedule is species and thickness specific fine tuned by the type, capacity, and percent loading of the drying chamber. Most softwoods have a hotter, quicker schedule than most hardwoods. Hobbyist solar kilns (lots of plans out there) without additional heat can be more forgiving to mixed loads because they have a moisture equalization period "when the sun don't shine". I've even known a few people that got pretty good at drying lumber by stickering it in an empty bedroom and using a room dehumidifier. The purpose of this rambling is to say there are a lot of ways to successfully dry lumber if you know what you are doing; if you don't you could even mess it up trying to air dry it.

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Well said. The potential problems with air drying are using green stickers, too few stickers, improperly spaced or stacked stickers, leaving the wood exposed to wind, rain, snow or sunlight. Other than these, if a piece of nice wood is simply put on stickers in the dark and left to its own device for a year or two, chances are high it’ll dry nicely with minimal loss. Especially in an attic after the first year. Factors like weight on top, dehumidifiers, gentle fans, etc can really improve the quality and speed of the drying experience after six months or a year of air. But rushing wood into a kiln is usually a recipe for heartache.

There will definitely not be any kiln drying of this wood (at least in near future)

The log sat in a pretty sheltered place (under some bushes). I'm not even sure a whole year has passed since it was felled. When I asked the guy I got it from when it was done he said "last year". This may have been 6 months ago or a year ago...

The cracks on the interesting end don't look very wide/deep. I hope they don't go further than few inches tops.

In addition to the log I managed to score a root of a slightly larger tree (the person that harvested the tree wanted nothing to do with the root). This root is fresh. And the diameter where the log was cut off is 28 in! Probably it will go to non-gun-stock related projects, but who knows.

(it is upside down and sideways on the photo)

There is a large sawmill in my neighbourhood. I found out in addition to huge industrial machines they have a bandsaw mill I could hire for cheap to cut it.

So now I'm trying to figure out the best side to start at etc. They'll also mill my root if I pressure wash it in advance

Afterwards I plan on painting ends of boards and any crotch wood with wax (A neighbor keeps bees, so I have plenty of beeswax). Then they'll be stored in a large storage tent. The sides of the tent are open most of the time so there is draft, no direct sun, no rain etc.

I should have gone today to have both the last g and the root sawed, but I'm giving myself till Monday to decide on the best side to cut.

Also the log has a vertical bow if I put the widest part horizontally. I'm considering cutting the thinner 6ft off to get rid od the bow. Then I could go for thick boards (3in)from the thicker log and cut the thinner one into 32mm boards(1. 25 in - a common board thickness here).

I hope you post photos of the stump and root wood.

excess650 said:

I hope you post photos of the stump and root wood.

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For sure. Unless something happens that it gets messed up horribly...

Just to illustrate how things can go sideways sometimes I'll say that once, I was building a crushed stone foundation for a concrete slab. I had a bunch of people remove soil etc manually because the surrounding area was pretty much a finished lawn. Then crushed stone was supposed to be dropped in the middle of the foundation. A huge truck came and without even stopping to ask for instructions the driver dropped 40 tons of stone in a middle of my finished lawn... 7 years later I'm still having stones shooting off to the side sometimes when mowing.

Ironoxide said:

For sure. Unless something happens that it gets messed up horribly...

Just to illustrate how things can go sideways sometimes I'll say that once, I was building a crushed stone foundation for a concrete slab. I had a bunch of people remove soil etc manually because the surrounding area was pretty much a finished lawn. Then crushed stone was supposed to be dropped in the middle of the foundation. A huge truck came and without even stopping to ask for instructions the driver dropped 40 tons of stone in a middle of my finished lawn... 7 years later I'm still having stones shooting off to the side sometimes when mowing.

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If the log is ten feet long, then you can cut two fives, a six and a four, or leave it full length. If cutting it into sections removes the curve and results in two fairly straight pieces, then that makes the most sense.
Live edge all slabs. Remove the bark. Leaving as much wood as you can along the edges helps stabilize the board, helps it dry slower.
the root ball might be interesting. They often have stones inside them, so watch out. This is fun. The .62 caliber rifle I posted is stocked from a curly hard maple from one of our logging jobs. I rarely see curly hard maple, maybe one tree in a couple hundred. Having a personal connection to the gun makes it more special to me. We had to sweat and bleed for it.

Quarter sawn, plane sawn. Hopefully I remember my college forestry degree stuff from 40+ years ago. As you start to cut slabs off the log they will be plane sawn and when approaching the center they will be quarter sawn. So, everybody can be happy.
Get it cut now, see what you got.
In a hurry to dry?
Put slab in solution of one cup of sugar to one gallon of water. Let soak for 2 months. Wash off, let dry a week then make gunstock. The sugar crystals prevent the wood from shrinking and I've done this with fiddleback and crotch grain. Other people soak in PEG, polyetholen glycol for the same result.

Steel Guitar said:

Quarter sawn, plane sawn. Hopefully I remember my college forestry degree stuff from 40+ years ago. As you start to cut slabs off the log they will be plane sawn and when approaching the center they will be quarter sawn. So, everybody can be happy.
Get it cut now, see what you got.
In a hurry to dry?
Put slab in solution of one cup of sugar to one gallon of water. Let soak for 2 months. Wash off, let dry a week then make gunstock. The sugar crystals prevent the wood from shrinking and I've done this with fiddleback and crotch grain. Other people soak in PEG, polyetholen glycol for the same result.

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It is true that the center cut is automatically quartersawn, due to the alignment of the growth rings. However, on a log of this roughly 15” diameter, that center cut will get the pith, too, which if not cut out will cause that plank to severely warp in the middle. So quartersawn, yes, but then sawn down the middle. That will result in two separate three-inch-thick planks that are each about 6-7” wide, not wide enough for a gunstock.

Ironoxide said:

For sure. Unless something happens that it gets messed up horribly...

Just to illustrate how things can go sideways sometimes I'll say that once, I was building a crushed stone foundation for a concrete slab. I had a bunch of people remove soil etc manually because the surrounding area was pretty much a finished lawn. Then crushed stone was supposed to be dropped in the middle of the foundation. A huge truck came and without even stopping to ask for instructions the driver dropped 40 tons of stone in a middle of my finished lawn... 7 years later I'm still having stones shooting off to the side sometimes when mowing.

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Hope you refused to pay for the stone.

SOLANCO said:

Hope you refused to pay for the stone.

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Yes I refused unless they cleaned up. I also didn't want any additional heavy equipment rolling around my lawn more than necessary. In the end the driver's boss came down and paid my building crew out of his pocket to move the stone manually (shovels and wheelbarrows, it didn't take them that long, half a day if I remember correctly). I did pay for the stone then.

They did a fairly good job of cleanup, but unless a layer of topsoil was removed they couldn't get rid of every last stone. That's why I still find few occasionally.

Best way to deal with it is to sell to a furniture maker and use the money for stock blanks.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but 15" diameter is pretty small. Consider you have sapwood and pith to avoid. You'll be very hard pressed to get stock blanks out of something this size. Not certain of the sapwood thickness as it varies considerably. You want to avoid probably the center 3" or so as well. This is juvenile wood that is often cracked and has a lot of small knots from when the tree was young. No good for a stock.

Ironoxide said:

I managed to get a dirt cheap log of plain European walnut locally. It has been harvested a year ago and it sat behind a shed in shade for a year. I know it needs lots of drying, but I'm not sure on the best procedure to follow.

Should I paint the ends and leave the entire log for many years, or have it sawed now, then paint end grain of the boards and season/dry resulting planks?

Ideally I would like to make at least one rifle stock and some smaller items from it. I'm not pressed with regards to time.
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Was it harvested near a house/barn or out in a stand of trees?

The reason I ask is because a tree that came from close to a house or barn should ALWAYS be considered to have the risk of nails or spikes in it. That will REALLY mess up a lumber saw tooth/teeth when it hits it.

The way to get around that is to bark the entire log and use one of the metal detecting wands all over the log. Dig out EVERY piece of Iron/Steel before you take it to be sawn. Even so, some lumber mills will still refuse to saw up a tree if it was close to a house or barn - just so you know.

I have Black Walnut Slabs downstairs in my climate controlled basement. I'm pretty sure it has air dried long enough, as the newest was cut and slabbed in 1965. I actually viewed it as a tree before it was cut down and slabbed. The "old stuff" was 25 years older than that. The only problem is most of it was cut too thin for gun stocks. I thank my Paternal Grandpa every time I get a piece of that wood to use.

Gus

Pete G said:

Best way to deal with it is to sell to a furniture maker and use the money for stock blanks.

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The problem with typical stock blanks is they don't come in shapes I have in mind :-(

James Kibler said:

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but 15" diameter is pretty small. Consider you have sapwood and pith to avoid. You'll be very hard pressed to get stock blanks out of something this size. Not certain of the sapwood thickness as it varies considerably. You want to avoid probably the center 3" or so as well. This is juvenile wood that is often cracked and has a lot of small knots from when the tree was young. No good for a stock.

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Yes, it is pretty small. I have some smallish gun projects in mind. (From a jager rifle - the largest and most unlikely to happen, to various black powder pistols - the smallest)

I'll definitely avoid the pith.

Gus, that is something I didn't think off. It is a very important thing to consider as if I messed that bandsaw that would be the first and last log I had sawn there.

The tree came from a suburban garden so may have nails. I have a pretty good metal detector. I'll run it over the wood.

I think I have a pretty good idea how to cut it now. For others in similar position this link was also very helpful Sawing walnut crotches for gun stock blanks in Sawmills and Milling

I had a walnut tree fall in high wind down in my woods, I got out my chainsaw and slabbed some crotch wood off for a stock blank. It turned out to have a lot of flaws. The tree has been down about 5 years now, walnut is very rot resistant but I haven't felt the urge to slab off anymore of the trunk as it is off a drop off and not easy to get to safely.

Ironoxide said:

Gus, that is something I didn't think off. It is a very important thing to consider as if I messed that bandsaw that would be the first and last log I had sawn there.

The tree came from a suburban garden so may have nails. I have a pretty good metal detector. I'll run it over the wood.

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The only reason I know of that is because in my teen years, my "crazy" or at least "a person with a very unique character" Uncle had a side business of cutting down trees that often were in suburban areas and threatening buildings around them. MOST tree removal folks would take one look and not accept the job because the trees were too close to power lines or houses. When I got big enough, I helped him with it, but at my Dad's insistence - I never described to my Mom half of what we had to do to down those trees, cut them up and haul them away. Had I said too much, Dad and I both would have been in huge trouble with her. LOL!

You are most welcome.

Gus

The wood has been cut. The root looks interesting, but there are too many faults for it to go to any gun related projects.

I decided to shorten the main log so it can be sawn level. I've got two nice boards very slightly under 3 inch thick (75mm) that were sawn on both sides of 1in board that came from the very center (containing the pith).

I attach some photos of the cutting.

I'll post few good pictures of the wood showing the figure when I'm stacking it to dry.

I have to paint the ends and crotch wood first. I planned to use beeswax, but I now decided to get some cheap outdoor use oil based paint for the purpose. It would take at least 5kg of beeswax to paint all of the wood that came from the root ball.

Ironoxide said:

The wood has been cut. The root looks interesting, but there are too many faults for it to go to any gun related projects.

I decided to shorten the main log so it can be sawn level. I've got two nice boards very slightly under 3 inch thick (75mm) that were sawn on both sides of 1in board that came from the very center (containing the pith).

I attach some photos of the cutting.
View attachment 88261View attachment 88262
I'll post few good pictures of the wood showing the figure when I'm stacking it to dry.

I have to paint the ends and crotch wood first. I planned to use beeswax, but I now decided to get some cheap outdoor use oil based paint for the purpose. It would take at least 5kg of beeswax to paint all of the wood that came from the root ball.

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Thick paint on the fresh ends will suffice. I use cheap latex paint sold by big box stores in five gallon buckets. Slob it on with a brush, painting in several different angles so it gets into the wood. You can’t put too much on. Or you can use AnchorSeal, which I have also used for a long time. It is expensive but effective. Congratulations on moving the log and your projects forward

pamtnman said:

Thick paint on the fresh ends will suffice. I use cheap latex paint sold by big box stores in five gallon buckets. Slob it on with a brush, painting in several different angles so it gets into the wood. You can’t put too much on. Or you can use AnchorSeal, which I have also used for a long time. It is expensive but effective. Congratulations on moving the log and your projects forward

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Thanks. I had some leftover white oil based paint and some outdoor use clear coat (for decking etc). So I used white for most of the log boards and clearcoat for the ends of the root ball. I had a little spillage, but it landed only on excess boards.

So in the end I have those two thick boards I mentioned before. There is a lot of sapwood there, but they may be fine for something gun related. Probably no jaeger stock though.

There is a little bit of pith left in one. I guess 1 inch cut from the middle wasn't enough.

Here they are

Then I got lots of extra planks I decided to saw 32mm thick (1 and a quarter inch). Those will be used for various woodworking projects.

I got two 3 inch slabs from the stump that was thrown in for free. Maybe I'll try turning a bowl etc with them in future.


And finally I've got a total of 6 slabs slightly thicker than 3 inch from the root. I'm not very good with wood, but they look quite nice to me. Maybe I'll try making one of those "clear epoxy filled wood tables" that are quite popular or something else.

Here are few photos. 2 slabs are large, 1 medium, and 3 quite small.



They look wet because I washed them with a pressure washer. Then I blown the water off with compressed air. Unfortunately there was a little bit of soil trapped in the root as well as a tiny stone that ground the bandsaw blade into some metal dust which promptly stained the wood purple-black. I managed to clean that "stain" off mostly, but not entirely. Here is a picture before cleaning.
And after


This is the entire stack. In the end I chose a spot outside the storage tent. This spot is in a back of my garage where the roof extends extra 3m. So it is sheltered from rain, but not sheltered from the sun or wind. So I'll be adding a tarp there as well.


As you can see I didn't debark the wood yet. I choose to do it later in the drying process.

Small pieces can make pistol grips and knife handles.

Here are some rifle and pistol stock options AFTER these slabs have dried for at least three years. At least. If you wait four years, the wood has an even higher chance of surviving the milling and shaping process.