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Thought this might be interesting to a few of the guys on here, and give me some useful info at the same time.

Here's an English Walnut tree on my parents farm. Diameter above the root swell is about 3 1/2 feet, don't know the age of the tree but I expect it's pretty old.

As you can see, the tree is on the way out, with dead branches etc. Thought we might as well get it milled before it actually dies and the wood becomes worthless. I'm meeting with a local sawmiller sometime this week which is why I have the below photos, taken from 4 angles around the tree.

So for those who know timber (and there seems be quite of bit of expertise around here) - if this was your tree, how would you mill it for gunstocks? Where would you place the blanks? Would you include any of the below-ground timber in the blank? Could you cut for feather figure in that first main branch without sacrificing the layout of blanks in the main trunk?

All a learning experience for me.

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Get the roots too.


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I had a similar sized maple tree that I wanted to have cut down and milled for woodworking projects. I couldn't find a tree company or sawmill that would touch it because of a couple of old spikes sticking out of it. One guy used a metal detector and couldn't detect any other embedded bits of metal, but still wouldn't touch it. They are deathly afraid of personal and machinery injuries from blades hitting foreign objects. I ended up cutting it down myself and milled a few slabs out of the trunk with the chainsaw, but most of it ended up as fire wood. I note some iron sticking out of yours?


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The best thing to do is to talk to a specia;ty company who cuts gun blanks - - - Wineland Walnut, Goby Walnut, etc. They may be able to help. The iron sticking out of the tree is a huge problem.

The only fix may be to get the tree dug and pulled out of the ground with a backhoe [a really big one] so the valuable root ball can be saved. Once down, a metal detector and large chainsaw can down siz the pieces a bit.

Once you have things to a hauling size, find someone with a water knife mill to cut the flitches. Limbs matbe with a chainsaw to get them small enough to evaluate and dry.

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The figure is in the root ball, best to have the tree dug out by the root ball instead of cutting it off at the stump. Some places grow well figured wood, some don't. It all depends upon the climate, I don't have any idea how New Zealand rates. You might be wasting your time if you don't have the right climate. I know in my home state of Mississippi, I could grow walnut trees till the cows came home and probably never produce a real exhibition grade blank. I'd certainly have it quartersawn, in my opinion a gunstock is worthless unless quartersawn. Some like the looks of a slab sawn stock but I can't warm to them.

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Having dealt with more than a few walnuts...

To help you decide how to cut it, start by cutting a core from the tree to see how much sapwood is there before the heartwood. Different cultivars in exactly the same conditions will maintain widely variable amounts of sapwood. Three feet of diameter guarantees there will be enough heart in the center to hide quite a few blanks. Even if you just trim some sapwood off the outside to see how deep the color is you will learn plenty.

There are a lot of good blanks in the tree regardless the "overall character" of the wood and the rootball is important as many have said.

The iron is an issue and I have some scars to explain why... It is why you will probably be forced to chainsaw it...

Do NOT attempt to use any limbs for lumber and especially not for blanks. It is 100% firewood due to juvenile and other reaction wood types.

If it has black marbling (quite possible because it looks like there is some insect damage and the lopped off branches allowed fungal access) boardsawn is going to show better. Curl is shown much better when quartersawn.

In the second photo the cut-off branch stub has a slight V in the bark immediately under the branch. That bark died as a result of the branch being cut off. There was some growth for awhile after the branch was removed and there is a ridge of figure directly behind that V extending deep into bole-branch junction. There may be progressively smaller ranks of Vs inside the first... May be a couple outside the line, too. A boardsawn series of 2-piece blanks right there will look pretty good, especially if cut long on the top end (about the center of the limb).

The other, more standard cut for limbs to achieve feather or crotch figure (same thing) is quarter-sawing starting with a cut straight through the center of the tree and the branch. So the centers of the them form a "Y" on the cut surfaces.

In the last picture, under the large limb there is obviously some curly stuff right there in the tightest turn, also, below and left of it there is what appears to be a high spot in the valley of buttressed wood and the main bole, with some curl clearly telegraphing through the bark.

Have to go pick up some bear hunters, but will add more later... Especially in regards to the roots.
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This is great stuff guys, thanks. Keep it coming...

I've got plenty of questions, but I'll keep most of them until I've met with the sawmiller to get an idea of what he's willing to do.

It's certainly a pity about the iron, I hope it's not a deal-breaker. I believe New Zealand has a good rep regarding growing conditions for walnut timber, certainly I've seen that written before.

We have a 13-tonne digger available, so should be able to get at that root wood. The better I can plan how it should be cut up now, the less likely we'll stuff up once it's on the ground...


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One might get the idea that Art knows a thing or two about wood and trees... and you would be right!

As Art correctly notes, the iron is a real concern so do be careful -- a friend that owns a lumber mill says that if you see any iron, there WILL be more that you cannot see!

Interesting thread -- I will look back to see the rest of Art's comments regarding the roots.

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Originally Posted by PaulNZ
This is great stuff guys, thanks. Keep it coming...

I've got plenty of questions, but I'll keep most of them until I've met with the sawmiller to get an idea of what he's willing to do.

It's certainly a pity about the iron, I hope it's not a deal-breaker. I believe New Zealand has a good rep regarding growing conditions for walnut timber, certainly I've seen that written before.

We have a 13-tonne digger available, so should be able to get at that root wood. The better I can plan how it should be cut up now, the less likely we'll stuff up once it's on the ground...



If you are near good brown trout it might be best if I inspected it in person! wink

Sawing is usually done as cutting-for-grade in non-commercial applications. Pick the best potential piece each time you cut, rather than slabbing the whole thing and hunting for blanks. Generally the best blanks will be found closer to the surface as figure builds atop figure. For example the inside curve at the roots often "wrinkle" and new wood laid down on old perpetuates it. This is of course fiddleback when sawn.

With absolutely no clue about the growing conditions the tree has been under and less about the soil and rocks it is hard to guess what you will find in the roots for shape. But there are a few things to count on... Walnuts are extremely difficult to get out of the ground without damage... They put down a taproot all the way to bedrock. The feeder roots coming laterally are the main interest (you can cut the taproot as it is exposed close under the laterals) but there will be rocks in there the tree grew around.

Actually it is not the roots themselves but the bottom of the bole that are best. Once the grain turns horizontal it can usually be forgotten. Furthermore, with limbs like this

Where the grain curves out into the roots is the tradional place to find the proper sweeping grip for the grip. Placed with luck the grain will not run at a strong angle to the comb at the heel of the butt... Makes the heel weak and potentially chippable...

It should be obvious if the grain is sweeping at the grip there has to be quite a bit of wood underground... The comb would typically be quite vertical in this layout. That also means rifle blanks need to be cut from about a foot below grade to about 2 1/2' above for general purposes. No sane sawyer would saw a root ball with anyhting other than a chainsaw. Or at least until it was opened and potential rocks found.

An interesting thing to consider about cutting logs into lumber, and looking at trees growing... There is a basic difference between hardwoods and softwoods (angiosperms and gymnosperms as I prefer to refer to them) when they are supporting branches. Walnuts and such grown more wood on the bottom side of limbs (compression wood) and the underside of the trunk when growing at an angle. Gymnosperms like pines support limbs with tension wood from the top side. Which is why angiosperms can spread limbs so much farther than gymnosperms. Next time you prune a fruit tree notice how the center of the limb is very nearly at the top of the limb.

The significance of this point when cutting blanks is the difficulty in cutting rifle blanks with crotch wood from limbs. The hollow immediately above most limbs also has sapwood between the surface and useable wood. The very best crotch-grain blanks are cut from either the splitting of main trunk stuff or when branches come out pointed very high, rather than horizontal stuff. The feather figure is the wood that fills in between the original branch and the bole. They usually have fillable defects. There appear to be plenty of opportunities to find good blanks in some of the bigger crotches farther up the tree.

Do not try to save wood from the center of the tree and avoid leaving the very center attached to blanks at all. The first several years of growth in trees is "juvenile" wood and it lacks most of the characteristics needed for stocks. It is very short-grained, less stable, more brittle, less fun to work because it is so brash, and can crack and perpetuate the cracks deeper into the good wood.
art


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Pith is the enemy of most anything woodworking.

Someone gave me a bunch of nice looking, walnut bowl blanks one day, and I took them home, but upon further insprection they had gotten the centercut of the trunk and the pith ran right down the middle of the end grain. When dry, 3 of the 5 had split completely in half even with the endgrain sealed with wax.


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If you had green-turned them, drilled a tiny hole at center on each end, and dried them slowly in a paper bag you would probably have been fine... Wood changes size when it dries and it is rarely uniform...
art


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Originally Posted by Sitka deer

If you are near good brown trout it might be best if I inspected it in person! wink



grin I'm sure something could be worked out. I'm in the Central North Island, about 2 hours up from Taupo. If you're into trout fishing, I'm sure you've heard of Taupo. I do my fishing a bit closer to home though, on a small river called the Waipa. Can be quite challenging fishing, but it holds a fair stock of both rainbow and brown trout. Got a nice 3lb brown on a dry-fly cicada imitation a couple of months ago, don't think I've managed to get out again since. Duckshooting season and the Roar (Red Deer rut) seemed to get in the way grin. Anyway, back to the walnut tree:

I'm starting to get a better idea of where the blanks maybe should be placed. To take it back a couple of steps though, where do you actually start cutting with a tree like this? Assuming we've excavated the root ball with the tree standing, cut the major roots, pushed/felled the tree over, what do you do then? How do you subdivide the tree so that you can, for instance, cut the boardsawn blanks from behind that cut off branch, get quartersawn blanks along the line of that main limb to pick up the curl, and line the blanks up with the root curvature to get that grain flow through the pistol grip? It would seem to me that you'd have to do some general sectioning first, to allow you to get these blanks free as they were cut.

As I said before, I haven't yet talked to the sawmiller. This might become more apparent to me once I have. All I've done previously is hand-slabbed small trees with a chainsaw, which is in a whole different league to what we're talking about here.

While I think of it, here's another question. I've been told that it's very important to mill the tree before the sap-rise in spring. Do you have a comment on this?

Savage2005 - thanks for the extra warning about the pith, I'll watch out for it. Nice bowl you've got pictured there by the way. I do a bit of wood turning myself from time to time, but nothing major.






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Where to start is always the tough part because it is really just a lot of guessing until the first few cuts open wrapper. The sawyer will likely have a good handle on doing it some particular way and most of them are engaged in turning trees into square edged things, not rounded stocks...

Limbing it to uncover the trunk will make a lot of things obvious...

As to sap... The extremely common wood used for all sorts of furniture here in the US right now, prima vera, is a great example of the sap problem. The trees are incredibly huge... so huge they time falling to avoid full moons... The sap actually has tidal effect! Falling it will thousands of extra pounds of water can damage the wood more.

Trees in the realm of your walnut are not there for concerns because they are both much smaller and far stronger, more elastic wood.

Some claim there is a difference in drying, but the edge there goes completely to added water... Wood will start having potential problems the minute the water starts leaving cut surfaces. Kiln drying is not really about getting water out faster, but rather about controling the water evaporation rate so the wood is not damaged in the process. Kiln-drying NEVER improves wood over proper air-drying. It only does it faster with "acceptable" levels of degrade.

Start with the easy, obvious pieces. The butt log should be at least 6' from cut to root bottom. After that the sawyers rig determines how long each log above should be.

Making a log cut just above the exposed iron is probably the safest way to dig it out. The iron in the tree is most likely above the hanging section... Metal detectors are a very good idea, but not infallible.

Gimme cuts:
From the fifth picture; Forks up in the tree (relatively vertical sections ONLY) should be split to produce two "Y" shaped pieces. That will expose potential crotch figure, which will be there, the question is how much... It also is a good place to look for quartersawn curl out away from the crotch. Marbling is generally limited to the lower portions, so any you see here is a great sign. Slabbing the halves from the exposed faces out is better than a quick and dirty "through and through" slabbing of the entire piece because it will do a far better job of following the pith. Grain run-out is not a good thing in blanks and making cuts from the outside of the log which are parallel to the pith is much more difficult...

Have to run, will try to add more later today...
art

Oh, if I did not live in AK I would probably be jealous! wink


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I turned one green, and forgot to wear gloves. After I managed to wash the purple stripe off everything in the garage, and got most of it off of myself, I anchorsealed them all and wrapped them in newspaper on a wire shelf.


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Yeah, green walnut is a mess and the juglone can be an irritant to many...


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Back to the forks up high... Realize a wide spreading fork does not produce a long feather as the tree grows in at the crotch from both sides, the closer they are to each other the longer they produce the fused look at the junction...

Man that is some lousy description!!!!!!! wink

Anyway, a 20" trunk below the fork would yield a single 2.5-3" quartersawn slab on each side of center. The remaining slabs from each side would be usable only as more boardsawn pieces as the remaining 7" (at the heavy end) would include sapwood. Some tight crotches like the one shown here will make a number of good slabs, but they start being very different from one side to the other, both from the rapidly diminishing crotch figure and the riftsawn curvature of the annual rings. It takes real size to provide much in the way of options after the first couple cuts...

Immediately paint all highly figured surfaces! I like to use linseed oil mixed into melted beeswax, 3 or 4 to one (75-80% BLO : 20-25% wax)... Anchorseal is very good, though quite a bit more expensive. PVA glue thinned way down is also very good. PVA can be purchased in powder form and mixed as needed.

Lacking those, old latex paint is far better than nothing. The ends need painting when you get a chance, but they can wait a day or so unless it is windy and dry. Tarp them up if is.

Stickering the blanks and keeping them covered will slow the drying process enough to ensure minimal damage and checking. Many do not realize wet air is lighter than dry air and a tarp traps moisture under it which slows things just about the way you want them...
art


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A lot of knowledgeable people here. Around my area you won't get a sawmill to cut a huge farm tree with out putting damage money up front. Farmers used to stick anything that fell off the horse or tractor in the nearest tree. We also have something we call "powder beetles" or "Glass worms". I don't know the proper name for them, but if they get in the wood it is worthless. Good luck with it.

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Paul, I also cut a tree from my fathers back yard. After hours of headscrathing I made a decision and cut the main section into a billet about 8 in either side of the heart ant set it all under the house on fillets to dry. After about 11 years I started to cut for blanks and ended up with just one usable piece as there were un-fillable bark pockets and the worst was that some time in the past when the tree was a pup kids must have built tree huts or smmething in it as we constantly hit nails right dowm into the base of the tree. Hope high but be prepared for anything.

Von Gruff.


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Well, I've finally tracked down the sawmiller, and I'm meeting him tomorrow to go over the possibilities. So by tomorrow afternoon, I should know a lot more about what's going to be feasible.


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Originally Posted by VonGruff
Paul, I also cut a tree from my fathers back yard. After hours of headscrathing I made a decision and cut the main section into a billet about 8 in either side of the heart ant set it all under the house on fillets to dry. After about 11 years I started to cut for blanks and ended up with just one usable piece as there were un-fillable bark pockets and the worst was that some time in the past when the tree was a pup kids must have built tree huts or smmething in it as we constantly hit nails right dowm into the base of the tree. Hope high but be prepared for anything.

Von Gruff.


Of all the bad ideas, leaving the heart intact is about the worst. It dries very differently from the rest of the wood and will create lots of stresses in bad places... Get rid of it first!


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