Black Walnut​​​​

Me as well. I’ll be coming in tomorrow a.m. If it all doesn’t fit, I can stop by on way in if you are somewhere north and east of 635/35E intersection.

I’ll head over now. @mblatz I’ll stash some for you. Storage if available or in my car until tomorrow.

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I’m still interested in pieces I can cut 2"x2"x20" from. I only need about 4 or 5 but I’ll take what I can get. I direct messaged you about where you could try to throw them in my project storage but I’m still at work and I can’t get there until 23:00. The project storage next to mine is empty if that person doesn’t mind lending to me for a few hours until I can get there to pick it up but if you get up there and too many other people snatch everything up I’m not gonna sulk about it. if somebody else in this theead is gonna be there and can hang onto a few pieces for me, hit me up on my cell/ 817-917-0909.

THANK YOU @Brian
Wood has been delivered and up for grabs in woodshop.

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noob question: is other wood in that spot also up for grabs? like that’s not project storage?

No project storage in woodshop.

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Forgot to mention @Brian said he had an 8 ft by 11" log he couldn’t move in his truck. Message him if you can pick it up TONIGHT. He’s headed out of town in morning.

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We found out this morning we will be driving ~1300 miles in two days then staying for an indeterminate number of weeks. This day became something dramatically different than what I had planned. So, I apologize to everyone who requested I set some wood aside. I just did not have time.

Thank you @apparently_weird for helping to haul!

Thank you @talkers for taking responsibility for the big chunk!

I hope everyone posts pictures of what you make; even if it is just sawdust!

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got what I need… I think. Thanks again!

question: if I want 2"x2"x20" pieces, should I cut it first then let it dry or seal the ends with the bark on to dry then cut it?

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In general green wood, like the felled tree, is going to shrink and crack over time. Wood contains moisture which will eventually evaporate from the wood. This evaporation causes the shrinkage. Drying wood can be done in a number of ways such as air or kiln drying.

Some wood turners will turn a piece of green wood down to a nominal bowl size and then wrap it in sawdust and a paper bag to let is dry then turn it again after it is dry. Some will put pen blank sized wood into the microwave to dry the wood quickly, but it takes several iterations on low power to do this.

So in general, you should seal it and wait for it to dry before cutting it into 2x2x20 boards. This will take at least a year and probably longer depending upon the size of the log. Then cutting it is another science because you can have to pay attention to the grain. Cutting it will release some of the stress in the log and you may get a cracked piece as a result. You may want the grain to look a certain way too such as quartersawn, but then you may not get as much lumber from the log. http://www.hardwooddistributors.org/blog/postings/what-is-the-difference-between-quarter-sawn-rift-sawn-and-plain-sawn-lumber/

You could cut the wood oversized say 3x3x24 to accommodate the shrinkage and the wood will dry faster, but you’ll likely get some back cracking as a result. If it were me I’d seal the ends with something like Anchorseal, latex paint, or wax and wait the year or so. You can use a moister meter to test how dry the wood is.

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yeeeeeeah, so i’ve read all that online several places but I guess I should be more specific:
I’m gonna build my own electric guitar blank in the same way people make the multi-wood cutting boards. The pieces I picked out are small branches that are already about 3"x4"-ish

So what I really want to do is cut off the bark to make the rough 3"x4" pieces and seal the ends, then dry them and after that run them through the joiner and plainer then cut 2"x2" or 1"x1" or whatever I finally decide.

Is that a good or bad idea PLAN-wise; I don’t need guitar advice, lol

Here are my thoughts. First, branches make pretty poor lumber. This part of the tree is still very much growing when cut and it doesn’t make very good boards. Even the large branches are not considered good lumber. Most mills only want the trunk of the tree. That is not to say you can’t make lumber from them, but the real walnut looking wood is in the trunk. What you want is heartwood not sapwood. Most of the branch is sapwood.

The trunk of a tree is made up of five different layers of which the heartwood is the most prized usually. Sapwood is, of course, also very much wood, but is often of a lighter color.

From this site: https://www.arborday.org/trees/treeguide/anatomy.cfm

  • The outer bark is the tree’s protection from the outside world. Continually renewed from within, it helps keep out moisture in the rain and prevents the tree from losing moisture when the air is dry. It insulates against cold and heat and wards off insect enemies.
  • The inner bark, or “phloem,” is the pipeline through which food is passed to the rest of the tree. It lives for only a short time then dies and turns to cork to become part of the protective outer bark.
  • The cambium cell layer is the growing part of the trunk. It annually produces new bark and new wood in response to hormones that pass down through the phloem with food from the leaves. These hormones, called “auxins,” stimulate growth in cells. Auxins are produced by leaf buds at the ends of branches as soon as they start growing in the spring.
  • Sapwood is the tree’s pipeline for water moving up to the leaves. Sapwood is new wood. As newer rings of sapwood are laid down, inner cells lose their vitality and turn to heartwood.
    *Heartwood is the central, supporting pillar of the tree. Although dead, it will not decay or lose strength while the outer layers are intact. A composite of hollow, needlelike cellulose fibers bound together by a chemical glue called lignin, it is in many ways as strong as steel. Set vertically, a 1" x 2" cross section that is 12" long can support twenty tons!

While there is some heartwood in bigger branches the majority of the wood is sapwood, which is the growing part of the tree.

So in conclusion, I would recommend stripping the bark while the wood is drying only if you’re going to kiln dry the wood. If you’re going to just air dry it you should probably leave the bark on. It will usually pull away during the drying process. If you do decide to strip it then you need to make sure to stack the individual pieces flat with something between the layers to allow air flow so that they can air dry. If they are small enough to bag in a paper bag do so as it retards the drying rate and helps prevent cracking. You can check on the wood once in a while and when it is dry then you can join, plane and cut it to size.

The important thing to remember is that ALL wood will MOVE when it is exposed to air and humidity. This is true even after it is made into furniture and finished. This means that using green wood is guaranteed to shrink, crack and warp if it isn’t dried properly. Go look in the wood pile in the wood shop at the wood that has been there a while. It is all cracked in the ends as the wood dried and the stresses in the wood caused it to crack.

Good luck with your project. It would be quite the achievement to make a guitar body from the walnut tree branches. If it were me, I would buy a piece of 8/4 or 12/4 walnut heartwood that had been cut from a large walnut trunk and mill it into my guitar body.

BTW: Your branches will dry much faster than the wood from the trunk because they are a smaller diameter. They will also likely twist and warp more, too.

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Regarding the Black Walnut, everyone meet Bobby. Bobby went for one heck of a ride on the lathe tonight. Will update when project is done.

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this is why you should always turn with your mouth closed.

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And a face mask. I had one bug come at me from mesquite.

Adding to @coloneldan excellent info, wood will crack first at the pith (the center). It’s under the most stress, and reacts as moisture leaves. Cutting that out will help a lot in the drying process.

You can then continue to cut out thick blanks. Sticker them (stack on top of each other with wood spacers) to let them air dry.

This is much more difficult than I had imagined… made about 30 of these from some beautiful Oak, and about 2 weeks after finishing them (cut, sand, seal, etc) they all PAC-manned on me. You may have to do some long, slow drying before cutting.

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Furthermore, some woods, which have a high moisture content, will twist/crack when you relocate from a humid region, say the Gulf coast to an arid region like El Paso. Some woods like Mesquite are stable once cut, but finding a piece of Mesquite that isn’t cracked when growing on the tree is almost impossible. Seems the growing process stresses the tree and along with the weather creates lots of cracking.

From http://texasalmanac.com/topics/science/ubiquitous-mesquite

Mesquite has a swirling grain, radial cracks, mineral deposits in the bark, and often many insect holes, which make working it a challenge. Finding a large, intact piece is almost impossible. But mesquite is dimensionally stable: As most hardwoods dry, they shrink more in one direction than they do in the other. Mesquite shrinks the same percentage in both directions. It has a surface hardness of 2,336 pounds per square inch, equal to that of hickory and almost twice that of oak and maple, and a density of 45 pounds per foot, greater than oak, maple, pecan and hickory.

It is because of this many craftsmen like @jeffbob love to work with it. That and Jeff has a great supply of the stuff.

I love to use it in cutting boards. My son and I made one to give to a German friend in Aurich, Germany last year. They don’t get much Mesquite in Germany. It is an expensive exotic wood there. :grin:
It is a heavy hard wood and is excellent for stabilizing the board.

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I visited the mill in Sanger a while back looking for some native Texas wood. They have mesquite, osage orange, oaks and walnut among others. I wanted a piece of Mesquite thick enough to turn a bowl from. I was looking through the stack and the guy says, “Are you looking for a piece with no cracks?” I said, “Well maybe one with only a few cracks” He says, “If you find one without cracks it’s not mesquite.” Mesquite is notorious for its “decorative” cracks. Fortunately, I found one that I thought was perfect. It was about 4’ long, 8 inches wide and 6 thick. It was cut from a very big mesquite tree and was destined to be a mantle for someone. After negotiating with the owner for few minutes, I got it for $100, along with some other odds and ends.

I’ve turned a couple of bowls from it. You guessed it. Once I cut into the wood during turning I exposed an internal crack. Still it makes for a beautiful bowl.

Mesquite is a beautiful wood isn’t it @jeffbob?

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At art shows, I love to look at the wood workers booths, I see a lot things like decorative bowls that have
cracks or holes either left as a decorative element or filled with I guess
it is epoxy and turquoise dust/ chips very attractive

I have a handmade dagger that has a mesquite hilt

It is beautiful. I am fixing to cut some more in a month or two.
Found a stash up here in Denton, ten minutes from my house.
Nothing real big but a lot of smaller stuff. Mostly up to 10".

Just gave a lot of old branches to the guys I sold two cutting boards to.
Had a bunch of empty mesquite beetle graves so no good for turning.
They loved it and the pickup load they took will be good for a year for them.
Helping my customers in dire need to keep their business over head down. LOL.

Jeff Whitcomb
2100 Bowling Green
Denton, TX 76201
800-969-9368
cell-903-203-9463
“The only good sense is one of humor, without it all the others are worthless.” JCW
[email protected]