claro walnut log

[BlueRider]

Seems like when it rains it pours, and lately I find myself swimming in walnut. one day a week during this past summer I milled walnut from an orchard that was removed. last week a neighbor offered me a walnut tree he was having removed from his front yard.

the first pic shows my rig on top of the log after milling 2 1" boards to be cut up for stickers and two 2 1/4" slabs. it is hard to tell from the pic but that is an 051 with a 42" bar and a grandburg mill with 48" rails. the log is 10' long and 36" at the base and 34" at the top.

The second pic shows a stack of 6 slabs, all 2 1/4" thick and 10' long. the slab on top is 28" at the near end.

The third pic really shows off the color and grain typical of claro walnut (juglans hindsii) I will get another 4 or 5 slabs when I finish up next week for a total yeild of about 500 bf.

 

[dustytools]

Nice looking slabs. What plans do you have for all of that Walnut? It and Cherry are my two favorite woods to build from.

 

[woodshop]

Nice catch... curious how you know it's a claro walnut. You are right, this stuff comes in spurts, all of a sudden you are up to your ears in logs.

 

[BlueRider]

I make my living making custom furniture and will use the wood for some future project. Most of it will get cut up into smaller pieces but I may hang onto a couple of slabs in case I get an order for a big table. I mill all the wood I use and I don't often get 10' long slabs.

The area of California where I live is in the range where claro is native. the other native walnut is juglans californica. The two can be difficult to tell apart when identifying by the leaves and it is often easier to identify by the size and shape of the mature tree. California walnut is a multi trunked tree rarely exceding 30' tall while claro trees are single trunked and can often exceed 50' tall. The tree pictured was nearly 70'.

Because claro is native and very hardy it is the prefered root stock for most of the orchards in california. The older orchards used multiple grafts as branches while the newer prefrence seems to be for a single graft about a foot above the ground. There are some orchards further north that used paradox rootstock.

Paradox walnut also sometimes called bastigone does show up ocasionaly and it is a cross of an english grafted onto claro root stock pollinated by a claro. The wood is darker than english and a bit lighter than claro. The paradox is that it is harder than either. The only paradox walnut I have seen is the one I have growing on my property and it is only 2' tall.

If anyone is interested I will send a 3"x6"x1/2" specimen of claro for the cost of postage.
The only paradox walnut

 

[woodshop]

...The area of California where I live is in the range where claro is native. the other native walnut is juglans californica. The two can be difficult to tell apart when identifying by the leaves and it is often easier to identify by the size and shape of the mature tree...

Very interesting... as a lover of trees and wood, I appreciate the info. The only walnut we have here in the east in any quantity is black walnut (juglans nigra). Grows only in good soil similar to black cherry (prunis serotina). I've heard that walnut, cherry and white oak out there in CA carry a pretty expensive price tag if you want to buy the stuff. I guess that log was a pretty prize for you then. I recognize those dimensions as the standard IWCS sample size, are you by any chance an IWCS member? (International Wood Collectors Society).

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Over the years i've managed to get my hands on some pretty nice Claro walnut. Mostly in the form of gun blanks, including this one that's on my old Remington Double shotgun...

Trust me, it looks MUCH better than these picts are showing it here!!! Anyway, i still have quite a few odds and end pieces of it around that i'll turn into "something" someday...

It's not as nice to work with as true Englisg walnut, but it sure can look flashier!

I did plant some "english" tree's here on my place many years ago, and they are doing pretty good...

Rob

 

[BlueRider]

I'm not a member of IWCS but I have samples of the wods I have milled and they happen to be the same size but are 3/4" thick.When I was at a show I had someone ask me the same question and that is how I heard about the IWCS and the prefered sample size.

Nice looking gun stock, sweet job on the checkering. On the log I am milling the last slab we pulled off the log last week exposed a bit of crotch figure very similar to you gun stock. I knew there was a crotch feather in the log but could not roll the log to mill for it, When this other crotch showed up it was a pleasant surprise as it is also just starting into the other crotch but from 90* . the combination is very showey. and you are correct about the showey stuff not being easy to work.

On the west coast we may be lucky to have claro walnut, but we have piss poor luck with english. I have yet to find an english that is not infested with insect damage. The orchard I have been milling has english branches grafted on top of claro and nearly all the branches have insect damage sometimes extending down into the sap wood on the claro. the heart wood on claro is so insect resistant that I often use it stack between wood I suspect to have bugs in it. Termites will eat the sap wood off a claro log and never touch the heart, same for beatles.