Summertime Black Walnut Festival
This black walnut went down in a hay field one mile from my house.
I got on to it today with the Stihl 039. Twenty inch bar. The drums are 25 inch diameter. No rot.
Most of the drums I could split with a few strokes with the Fiskars maul. This one, I had to use the ten pound
hammer and the Wood Grenade. I like to burn black walnut usually it splits pretty easy.
Six drums just about did it. Plus I had to haul 2 chain saws, a cant hook, one maul, one ten pound hammer, and gas and oil jugs. Not good if that stuff falls out on the road.
0
-
You cut up a highly valuable walnut tree for firewood? (Green font) 3 -
dang allen hope you don't need to use that ladder very soon........... 3 -
Yeah, that is the only down side. I have no where to stack this wood. So I got my giant ladder out.
I will pile this truck load onto that ladder. Probably split it up and put it in the woodshed in January.0 -
There is a sawmill 9 miles from here and I have bought lots of stuff from him, like, 3 log cabins. Thousands of board feet of white pine I have bought. I am friends with this guy.
Last month I drove up there and asked Tim how much black walnut was worth. He said $1 a board foot, if I deliver the wood to the sawmill.
I cut up 8 feet of the trunk today. I figure that might be worth $80 at the sawmill.
It is $80 worth of firewood.
Plus I don't know how I would haul an 8 foot trunk to the sawmill.0 -
Beautiful wood. I don't think I could cut one down unless it was absolutely necessary. 0 -
Quick web search says lumber quality logs are around 1.70 per board foot and veneer quality about twice (multiple sources).
You probably made the right decision to use it as firewood, but there are sections that sure would have made some beautiful stocks.0 -
Wow, that would have made some great looking gun stocks!!!!!!!! 0 -
Mr. McManus-Right on. We have as few on our property but will always enjoy them as great trees as do the squirrels 0 -
Judy and I have 3 sixty foot black walnuts in one part of the yard. Beautiful trees with great canopies. 11 months of the year I love having them there. Come October when they make a helluva mess with the walnut shucks and the leaves and stems that hold the leaf clusters I am tempted to turn them into firewood myself. The squirrels eat the nuts and leave the shucks which leak tannins that can kill the lawn. Every once in a while both the squirrels and I miss one but the mower doesn't. It kind of gets your attention when one bounces around under the deck before flying out like a bullet. Glad I have them but glad I don't have more. Bob 0 -
..I know Black Walnut Ice Cream is my favorite,,,, 0 -
montanajoe: 31542294634011/comments/31542350005659
..I know Black Walnut Ice Cream is my favorite,,,,The wife just mentioned that she could go for some Black Walnut Ice Cream. It's her favorite, and grandma made it from the nuts of her tree...it's probably my favorite as well!
3 -
This tree went over in a violent thunderstorm.
The other problem with this tree, besides the fact that I have no way to haul it to the sawmill, is that it set on the edge of the field. Sometime, over the years, they fenced in the field and the hog wire fence is nailed to this tree.
Sawmill will not take a tree if they know it has nails in it. They only want trees that grew up in the forest and that have no nails.
That work yesterday got good to me and I am going back this morning for more.
Yet, I say there is a place in the world for black walnut lumber. Several years ago I whacked this black walnut on my property, and sawed it into a timber with my chain saw. The big wet chain saw sawdust did not bother me.
And I installed it as the Summerbeam in my log cabin. I have two, of the 7 inch disc grinders, a Makita and a DeWalt.
I put my helper to work sanding that Summerbeam down, had goggles for him and a respirator. That fine powdery dry sawdust from black walnut contains toxins. In one hour of sanding, you would make about a quart of fine, powdery sawdust. It was like flour.
In a half hour Adam was covered with the sawdust, it made Adam sick and I had to send him home, and he is not a wimp.
I had to spend 9 hours sanding that dame beam down, first with 40 grit, then 60 grit, then 90 grit. Remember it had the rough marks of a chain saw on it.
And then, I got out the 3x24 Makita belt sander and polished it up with the 100 grit. The damn black walnut sawdust made me feel kind of sick as well but I kept sanding, I wanted a particular look with that beam.
I am sitting right beneath it now and it is beautiful I must say.
If you plant a vegetable garden, and there is a black walnut growing nearby, it will kill most all of the vegetables.
Some weird freaky toxins in the black walnut leaves, and powder sawdust.0 -
grampa allways said it was either walnut or locust leaves made cows sick, he would never cut one down in the pasture field without moving the cows......
thinking back I may be wrong I think it was wild cherry limbs he used to make us pick up after storms, said the leaves would make the cows sick0 -
Black walnut shavings will play hell with a horses hooves (laminitis) and can kill 'em. 0 -
well, according to my Scribner scale a 24" dia. 8' log has 210 board feet of sawed lumber (circle saw, band saw= x 1.2) so $1.70 x 210 = $357 for the first log 0 -
I planted a small walnut tree in the yard and about 10 years later it was tall and making walnuts. Could not believe how tall and fast that walnut grew. One day during a high wind I was walking by the tree and clump of about 3 huge walnuts fell, hit me on top of head, knocked off my glasses. If not for the cap it might have been lights out with broken glasses. I moved and did not warn the new owner. No more black walnut tree will ever be in my yard and even when in the woods hunting now days I do not mess around under a walnut tree if it's loaded with nuts.
Black walnut standing timber around here is priced like gold also, but pine is not worth much.
Keep hoping price of standing pine timber will come back, but it's not happening???????
Cherokee Indains would crush the green hulls, get the sap and use the black sap as Rotenone to make fish sick in streams. Fish will surface sickly trying to get air.0 -
Well, Mike that is an informative post from you, as usual. I obviously don't know how to calculate board feet.
Maybe I need to figure a way to get the trunk to the mill.
Nevertheless I did go and get some more this morning. Seventeen inch long drums and 25 inch diameter, this stuff is hard to split with a maul.
Before I left this morning, the girlfriend said "Why are you getting more wood? You didn't have room for the load last week when you started stacking it on the ladder. Where will you put the load this morning."
That is a good question. Might have to get out another ladder.0 -
Thanks for the pics, Allen! Really nice to see them. You would know, too, that the toxin is also in the hulls of the nuts. One of my cousins, not law abiding, use them with the green hull on in a tow sack that was used to whale away on a usually, partially submerged tree trunk, the toxin I guess would help deplete the oxygen in the water or simply stun them and cause the fish to come to the top for easy pickings...that and the old telephone process was another favorite method he used. My Dad, his brothers and their wives would only grin and deny ever using such illegal fishing methods.allen griggs said:This tree went over in a violent thunderstorm.
The other problem with this tree, besides the fact that I have no way to haul it to the sawmill, is that it set on the edge of the field. Sometime, over the years, they fenced in the field and the hog wire fence is nailed to this tree.
Sawmill will not take a tree if they know it has nails in it. They only want trees that grew up in the forest and that have no nails.
That work yesterday got good to me and I am going back this morning for more.
Yet, I say there is a place in the world for black walnut lumber. Several years ago I whacked this black walnut on my property, and sawed it into a timber with my chain saw. The big wet chain saw sawdust did not bother me.
And I installed it as the Summerbeam in my log cabin. I have two, of the 7 inch disc grinders, a Makita and a DeWalt.
I put my helper to work sanding that Summerbeam down, had goggles for him and a respirator. That fine powdery dry sawdust from black walnut contains toxins. In one hour of sanding, you would make about a quart of fine, powdery sawdust. It was like flour.
In a half hour Adam was covered with the sawdust, it made Adam sick and I had to send him home, and he is not a wimp.
I had to spend 9 hours sanding that dame beam down, first with 40 grit, then 60 grit, then 90 grit. Remember it had the rough marks of a chain saw on it.
And then, I got out the 3x24 Makita belt sander and polished it up with the 100 grit. The damn black walnut sawdust made me feel kind of sick as well but I kept sanding, I wanted a particular look with that beam.
I am sitting right beneath it now and it is beautiful I must say.
If you plant a vegetable garden, and there is a black walnut growing nearby, it will kill most all of the vegetables.
Some weird freaky toxins in the black walnut leaves, and powder sawdust.0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
18 comments