Isobel walnut down

The major value will be in veneer. A veneer quality log will be 10' long, solid, perfectly straight and free of knots, limbs, branches, damage and odd-grain. If you have one such log on the tree I'd be surprised. It's been

30 years since I graded standing hardwood and don't know the going rate.

Your statement of "...has several good straight sections..." leads me to believe that your tree is worthless to a logger. At least around here (Southwest Missouri) that is. 2' diameter is pretty small too. Again, around here it is. Walnut gets logged around this region pretty heavily. How tall is the tree? How high up do the branches start? How many branches? Does the diameter stay constant and how far up does it? Where is it located (state, region, in the country in a stand of other walnuts, in the city, near a fenceline or road, and so on)? Anything particularly special about the tree either in relation to it's physical properties or even its history? Does it have any burls or spectacular grain? A picture would help. There's so many variables to consider.

If it's just a plain ol' black walnut tree 2' in diameter, 60' tall, with "several good straight sections" and no particularly great other values then I think you should be satisfied if he offers to haul it away for free. If he offers to pay $100 then you've had a good day. That's the view from a small-time logger in Southwest Missouri. Things could be completely different where you live.

- Andrew

Andrew asked:

I'll tell you what the tree man said. First he said that he would come back and cut it free from the root ball to see how sound it is, but that it looked pretty good. Then he said he could get a 12' x 24" log from the base, then there is a crooked spot above which he could get a 8' x 20" log. Then it splits in two and he said he could take a 10' x 18" log from each branch. Only one limb before the top and that is in the crooked section. I have a lot of walnut trees and I told him, if the price was good, I might let him take a few more. This is in West Virginia. 24" may be small for Missouri, but when I was a kid in upstate NY, we lumbered trees that were only 18", 2' was considered good size and anything over 3' was huge. Mostly mapel, oak and cherry.

Dave

Chuck said:

Where the heck did you live where the hardwood was considered "good" if it was 2' in diameter?

Chuck, Surrounded by "Good" and "Huge" trees, in the Adirondacks

-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <

September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

Ahhh, ok. I see now. This tree man you're talking about is taking smaller cuts than even I deal with. The 12' x 24" lower trunk would be the smallest I'd even think of handling. The rest is firewood. It's just not cost efficient to do smaller sizes for my kind of operation. But if this guy can do something with the smaller logs then all the power to him. Maybe he's milling his own for personal use.

Anyway, by my rates and making the assumption that the grade of those sections is outstanding, I'd be offering you in the area of $225 for the log sections. Your area and the circumstances may provide drastically different amounts.

24" diameter walnut isn't bad here in my area but it's not generally touched by the loggers until it's around 3'. We don't take the really old, huge ones either, for the most part. There really is a narrow range of properties that a tree must fall into to be worth the (financial) risk to log it out for our, and larger, operations. Now, as a woodworker and woodturner, just about ANY tree is fair game for that as far as I'm concerned!

Good luck,

- Andy

Andrew Hilton said:

I just bought some walnut 2" x 5" x 5' for $15.00 a bf(Can). The firewood sure seems a waste of good wood. Of course up here walnut almost seems like an exotic hardwood.(northern Alberta)

Here's a suggestion, try selling the wood to local turners. Burning walnut is a hanging offense. Dave in Fairfax

Dave in Fairfax said: