wood ?

[dickert54cal]

I had a 50 plus year old Black Walnut tree come down last month---Started cutting it up when I realized it what it was. I have the bottom 8-10 feet left? Fire wood or can it be used for

[T*O*F]

I have the bottom 8-10 feet left? Fire wood or can it be used for 

Bottom is the best part.  Dig down around the roots and include as much of them as you can.  Lots of good dense figured wood near the roots.  Lots of wood dealers will dig them up with a backhoe when they find a good tree.

[rich pierce]

How thick is it at the base?
If not thick enough for rifle stocks, black walnut can make some nice bows, that's for sure.  Pistol blanks don't require so much thickness.

[dickert54cal]

Hi Rich--how are you doing?  The base (the darkest area) is about 12 inches across. Beautiful color!

[northmn]

12 inches across is too small for a rifle but cut it up for lumber or a pistol.  We just had another thread on wood with great pictures from Acer. Rifle stocks are made out of quarter sawed lumber which is a log cut in half and then sawed out to boards from there.  At 12 inches you would have at best a six inch wide board to work with which would then be cut down more to eliminate the almost white sapwood.  I have a commercial stock I am working on that has sap wood on the toe and at the bottom of the very tip of the forestock which was cut off.  The grain is pretty straight through the wrist which makes me suspect the blank came out of the upper portion of the tree.  Its also very straight grained.  I use fairly small trees for my "home grown" projects and figure on maybe 18-24 inches at the base maximum.  I cut them off so that there is almot no stump to get it.  These are also "white wood" trees. Also the fact that it "came down" makes me wonder.  How did it come down and what were the stresses?

DP

[keweenaw]

I'm not sure how northmn is cutting his wood but unless you're insisting on quarter sawing you should be able to get two reasonable 8" to 9", 12/4 blanks from a 12" log as well as some boards.  But, I would just saw the log into boards.  Someone in your area probably has a woodmizer band mill and can cut it for your for a reasonable price.

Tom

[Robby]

What is the diameter including the white sapwood? You should include that, it can be made the same color as the dark wood by steaming.

[northmn]

Stock blanks are best quarter sawed and the commercial ones come that way.  If plane sawed you can get wider boards.  I would not mess with a plain sawed stock as you would have too much work in it. 

DP

[acorn20]

DP,

Last year at Dixon's I was perusing through some fine curly maple stocks at a vendor located in the same tent as Wayne Dunlap.  The vendor was on the road side about halfway in the tent.  I know that you can get really nice figure by quarter-sawing the wood.  I asked him if his stocks were quarter-sawn and he said they wouldn't quarter-saw because they felt it weakened the wood.  I noticed that you state that stock blands are best quarter-sawn and was wondering what you take of his statement.

Dan

[northmn]

Stocks that you buy through vendors such as TOW use quarter sawn.  I am curious as yo why the person said it "weakend" the wood.  Plain sawed lumber, expecially through the center includes a round pith that is almost grainless.  If you look at a lumberyard 2X10 and look at the end grain of a few.  you will also see a grainless blaze stick out the top round of one side.   The dried wood tends to warp away from that center.   Also it tends to crack close to that area. Were that area to go through the wrist you would have a chance of it breaking away. As an example when splitting firewood I have had the center fall out.  Quarter sawn limber is much more stable for drying and does yield better figure.  A nice rifle could be built out of plain sawn lumber I suppose, especially on a board cut off the side and not going through the center, it would depend on layout. A friend of mine bought a lumber yard board and made 3 or 4 rifles out of it.  You still get that area of tight swirl. If you look at Acer's pictures on the other thread on sawing out wood on page 2,  you will see where that area is cut out for gunstocks.
Looking at the focus of this thread, what I suggest is to draw a 12 inch circle and start running lines through it to see how many boards you might get out of it.  Allowing for slabs and other things you might get 8 1 inch boards maybe 9 depending on desired width, remember to deduct for saw kerf.  The curvature on a small tree  also works against you, especially if the base is 12 inches.  There is also a taper such that the other end is likely smaller. 
Industrial Arts Woodworking 101.  If you want to make a wide surface area it is better to glue more narrow boards together than to use  a wide one.  They warp less, especially if run in oppsoition.  Wide boards in the industry are used a lot for support such as floor joises or rafters.  Plain sawed boards also work as studs.  Considering the number of quarter sawn rifles made and the industry preference I would use quarter sawn.  To each their own.

DP

[T*O*F]

Stocks that you buy through vendors such as TOW use quarter sawn.

(Expletive deleted)  You haven't got a clue cause that ain't the fact, Jack.

Even Wayne Dunlap will have some of his blanks marked as quarter sawn and charge a bit of a premium for them.  The rest are slab sawn.

You need only look at the butt end of any of those stocks and observe the direction and size of the growth rings.  Many of the "plain" stocks sold even contain sapwood.

[dickert54cal]

Had  a class after work so I will try to get an accurate measurment tomorrow as to the width of the wood---As I look at my computer screne and think about a piece I took into work today 12 inches across seems a bit small---Im thinking more like 16 minimum-----I will take a tape down for a more accurate reading.

[rich pierce]

Glad you got some walnut to work with- it's always fun to work wood you harvested.  It takes a bigger log to quarter saw and get anything much from it in terms of gunstocks (pistols, OK). 

[California Kid]

Rich, good reply Dickert will find out what he has when he saws it up.
TOF, I think you are right when you say that most commercial blanks are slab sawn, thats been my experience over 30 plus years. 1/4 sawn always seems to bring a premium. In my experience I've found that slab sawn yields better figure in maple. If you lay blanks out correctly the grain will be fine through the wrist. Just my 2 pence

[keweenaw]

If you are looking at Dunlap's figured blanks, and I've looked at hundreds of them, there are at least 8 to 10 plain sawn blanks for every quarter sawn one and the quartered blanks bring a premium.  Layout is also much more important in a quartered blank to avoid the grain running across the wrist.  The primary reason we like quartered maple blanks is that the figure shows better.  On standard black walnut a quartered blank is very uninteresting, the grain shows better on the plain sawn ones.  Crotches and other figure is a different matter.  When sawing blanks out of a relatively small log there are two things to remember.  One is you need to avoid the core of pith in the center and the other is that the two sides of a 10 or12/4 blank cut from a 12" log will look different on the two sides.  The side close to the center will be almost perfectly quartered, the side out three inches will be rift sawn on the edges and plain sawn in the center.  This make layout a bit trickier and the two sides work very differently with hand tools.

 If you are going have that log custom sawn make sure to tell the sawyer to avoid getting the pith in your two thick planks. 

Tom

[Ky-Flinter]

..... In my experience I've found that slab sawn yields better figure in maple......

.....  The primary reason we like quartered maple blanks is that the figure shows better.....

Ok, now I really am confused! 

-Ron

[keweenaw]

Because of the way the curl works on maple, and other woods, the grains are wavering much more on the quartered face of the wood and thus take stain more differentially as the angles of the grain to the surface of the wood vary.  The two images below are of the same forestock.  This stock was nearly perfectly plain sawn.  On the bottom of the forestock you have the quartered face which shows the curl extremely well.  On the side view you're seeing the plain sawn side - still nice but nothing like the quartered aspect.  This makes less difference on the forestock than the butt as the forestock is highly contoured, and some blanks show less difference between the two aspects.  On the butt with flatter sides, curly doesn't show as well on a plain sawn blank as it would on a quarter sawn one. 

Tom

[northmn]

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii425/Davidpeck16/003-1.jpg

I made this gun out of a log I cut out using a Huskvarna 350 (pardon the spelling) and a few wedges for a sawmill.  It is setting on its opposite from the other side of the tree.  And is quarter sawn.  I could have possibly done as well with a plain sawn portion.  All a plain sawn piece of wood is is two quarter sawn pieces.   When you cut out of small trees as this thread is about as stated, you cannot use the absolute center of the log as Snyder stated.  Another point in doing this is that the figure, which is very similar to burl in walnut came from the very base of the tree.  I almost cut dirt to get the diameter I wanted.  I mentioned that you angle the toe toward the outside and the barrel to the inside for layout.  Had I not done so if you look you would see that I would have cut out a lot of figure.  Also it takes advantage of the natural configuration of the tree.  I bought a commercial stock which has the sapwood on the toe also.
Basically I admitted my age earlier in this discussion.  I started building in the early 70's and the people I bought from advertised quarter sawn hard maple.  One stock I had was so hard in areas that I thought you needed machine tools to cut it as the rasp kind of skidded over it.  Later the companies were having a hard time getting enough wood.  They solved by introducing the softer maples we see now.  A gun I built out of one of the softer maples had lots of figure but worked like pine.  The plain sawing is another indication of problems of supply.  It tells me they have had to go to smaller trees.  As a properly cut out plain sawed blank is just 2 quarter sawed pieces naturally grown together and should not be a big deal.  In a smaller walnut tree cut out the dead center for lumber and saw out the center yourself, and plain saw out a couple of blanks close to the center.
I have purchased my last commercial stock as I was somewhat disappointed in the quality.  It was walnut, which I thought was more appropriate to the project.  I could have made a prettier rifle using the sister stock.  Long story.

DP