woodshop
Addicted to ArboristSite
Just got back from milling a 26" walnut log that had blown down in yard. Got about 175 bd ft the first trip, and tonight about 150 more. It had a lot of sapwood, so by the time I got down to the brown walnut heartwood half the log had been milled away. Anyway... not complaining, because once in a while you get lucky, and this thing had a promising looking crotch section. My experience in the past has been that they are a crap shoot... sometimes you get some nice solid stuff, sometimes there is bark inclusions and the figure only stretches for maybe a foot or more even though it looks like it should be longer from the outside. When I opened up this crotch section I couldn't believe how pretty it was... about as good as it gets. The figure goes for over 36 inches and is about 9 inches wide and somewhat uniform in width. I milled it 5/4, and of the 8 13" wide boards I got from it I'd say 5 of them are as pretty like this one pic below. I just ran this one board through the planer to clean up the bandsaw mill marks and see how pretty it was. Imagine when this has been dried, S4S and a coat of oil brings out the figure. Only problem is special boards like these I tend to not use because I'm waiting for that "special" project somewhere in the future that can really show something like this off.