doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Restocking Slab/Rift or Quartersawn?

I have often thought that having your own tree cut, drying it, then working through it all to get the best of the best, is much like taking your own steer to the abbatoir to have butchered for the family's beef. I've done it several times in my life, and came to the conclusion that I'd much rather pick out what I want at the butcher shop than go through the hassle and risk of having a freezer full of tough steaks. It happens. That said, I admire anyone who goes to the effort to research the proper way to do it, and pulls it off. I have 6 or 7 curly maple longrifle blanks bolted together in my shop that have been air drying for at least 45 years. They were cut locally and given to me by a dear departed friend. I'll probably never use them.

SRH

You are right Stan, for most people, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

But, if you get a book matched pair of AAA or above, well, digging out a stump and powerwashing it is suddenly viable.

It's like opening a very heavy and dirty box of chocolates.

Everybody thinks they are going to get rich off the Walnut tree littering Grandma's front yard. That's not been my experience, though there is better money in a Walnut log than a Hard Maple log. I know some farmers that were told as kids to plant them for their retirement.

Who know's, maybe your Grandkid's can plant a couple runs and in 80 years get something for them.

Furniture and trim grade walnut (even black walnut!) has become a lot more expensive in the past 18 months. I think that the 90% of the walnut tree that will not make good stock blanks can still be worth cutting and drying.

20 years ago we planted 4500 black walnuts in the river bottoms as part of a riparian corridor program. I figure in about 80 more years someone is going to have a major harvest.

DDA

It�s pretty easy to pick up the tele and call Cecil Fredi if you want a very nice blank at a reasonable price, air dried in the Las Vegas desert. Having said that, I can certainly see some satisfaction from a blank derived from a tree from your own property. I had several white oak trees that had been hit by lightning sawed into lumber about 15 or so years ago which I stacked in a barn, and slatted to air dry. My neighbor is a wood worker and he recently made shutters for my house out of that oak. You would not believe how much lumber he went through to make 12 shutters. Much of that wood developed cracks over time. I�m wondering if being struck by lightning had something to do with lots of the cracks? Anyway, the shutters are fabulous, and I�m guessing they will last much longer than the poplar shutters they replaced.....and I think it�s kind of neat they came from trees off my farm.

When the young country doctor that built my house married, in 1874, he built this house. First year taxes were paid was 1875. They evidently planted the yard full of red oaks that year, because in 1998 the last one died, from drought. All the others had been pithy or rotten in the heart, but that last one wasn't. I had it cut down, learned it was solid to the first year growth ring, counted the rings, which placed it being planted at about the time the house was built, and decided to preserve as much of it as I could in furniture. I took a 16+ ft. log to a friend with a WoodMizer sawmill and he sawed 840 bd./ft. of boards out of it, and kiln dried them for me on site. Many of the boards checked, as buzz described, and there was much waste, but I had the best of them built into a 4' X 12' dining room table and sideboard buffet. My family, and friends, gather 'round it several times a year to feast and fellowship.

It really is special to have furniture that was built from a tree that was planted by the man that had the house built, Dr. W. J. Herrington. RIP

SRH

Stan,
That's a great story, and what a priceless treasure to have as a centerpiece of your home. Special furniture such as that is enduring.
Karl

When I clear cut a detached 17 acre tract of pines I have in middle GA last summer, I found an old house I'd forgotten about. Before I re-plant I plan to salvage the floor joists to use for a dinner table like Stan described. It won't be red oak, but hundred year+ old heart pine might be nice...Geo

Geo, southern yellow pine would be a great table. They are most likely a full 2" x 10" and just a light skim cut with a thickness planer, ripped and jointed you will have a table for a few generations.
I can already see a nice trestle table.

Geo, many years ago I had an old house that had been sitting empty for at least fifty years. Floor boards were in poor shape but the joist and main beams were fine. We pulled out 20 plus 4x8 x 16-24' old growth red oak joist and beams. The growth rings were so close that you could not count them with the naked eye. Everything had been notched and pegged to join them. A few cut nails came out with the floor boards. It was such nice clean, clear lumber. Everything was quarter sawed. No knots in them anywhere. I suspect it had been timbered and sawn into lumber on the same farm the house was on. I later learned that house had been moved twice on that farm from the riverbank to a hill and later toward the new road. After all that it was just as solid as the day it was built. Built well with top materials.