Unique Wood Product of the Month:Feb 2010 Wide walnut crotch

Early in 2008, while buying logs Virginia, we ran across a massive walnut stump, inclucing a crotch. This thing was HUGE and we had no real way to handle its +5’ width. Somehow we were so taken with the size and volume of the wood that we ended up adding it to our collection. There was much discussion over how we should handle the monster; quarter it to yield some massive widths of straight grain lumber (a method we knew how to do), or find a way to slab it and go for pieces full width with potential crotch grain in the center.

The end of the log was showing some ingrown bark, and ingrown bark in a crotch log can lead to major problems. But, the tempting thought of super wide walnut slabs was overpowering. We chose to go for it and rigged up a make-shift slabbing mill using a forklift, an extra long chainsaw bar, and some bad engineering. Our smaller trial log went fairly well, then we tackeled the walnut. Our initial optimism flourished when we took off the outer slab and revealed some encouraging solid walnut. Optimism waned as the next couple of cuts did not go so well. The tip of the chainsaw wandered in the wood and our uniform 2” thick cuts turned into a lot of future router work. A couple of slabs later the ingrown bark began to make its appearance (darn!) and we only managed to get a few nice pieces before the crotch grain was consumed by ingrown bark. We reluctantly had to resort to quartering the log and sending it to our headsaw for extra wide straight grain lumber.

The straight grain lumber was processed in our mill, dried, and made into awesome stair treads which now serve their purpose beautifully somewhere in Tennessee. The slabs that we were able to get from the log were set aside to air dry for two years. With the start of 2010 we decided to work up those slabs and get them ready for the website. The ingrown bark which had made us abort our mission back in '08 also caused cracks in two of the full width slabs over the years. The only full width slab remaining had some bad saw notches which had to be routed smooth. So now, after a long wait, we are showcasing the remaining spectacular pieces of that monster walnut crotch.


For point of reference, Pete is 6'4" tall!	Back sides of A1, A2, B1, B2

	...........
Close up of beautiful grain


Various views of Piece 'C' - an amazing five wide feet of intact wood

We were all disappointed that the slabbing mill didn't do a better job of cutting, and that the ingrown bark had grown so overwhelmingly inside of the tree.

The sawing experience strongly reinforced two points for us:

1. Slabbing +5’ wide flitches takes a sound and sturdy machine and

2. Dreams of wide clear flitches cannot take ingown bark out of a tree.

Piece Number	Length	Width	Thickness	Board Feet
A1	6'4	upper - 36	1.25	21.3
-	-	center - 29	-	-
-	-	lower - 32	-	-
-	-	AVG - 32.3"	-	-
A2	6'7	upper - 28.5	1.25	17.7
-	-	center - 26.5	-	-
-	-	lower - 22.5	-	-
-	-	AVG - 25.8"	-	-
B1	6'9	upper - 36	1.25	22.5
-	-	center - 28	-	-
-	-	lower - 32	-	-
-	-	AVG - 32"	-	-
B2	6'7	upper - 28.5	1.25	17.6
-	-	center - 26	-	-
-	-	lower - 22.5	-	-
-	-	AVG - 25.7"	-	-
C	80	upper - 51	1	30.6
-	-	center - 53	-	-
-	-	lower - 61	-	-
-	-	AVG - 55"	-	-