Milling Black Walnut Flitches

A friend milled Walnut flitches for me this week. You never know what is inside a log before you start cutting but this Black Walnut log was beautiful inside.

Each piece is stacked in the order they were cut, just like the shape of the original log.

The first cut of a log or “Flitching Line” is the most important cut as the location of the first cut dictates the grain pattern for the entire sequence of cuts. Only years of experience on where the flitching line should be on the log will unveil the best the log has to offer in grain and color. If you get this first cut wrong, you could have unusable lumber.

This Black Walnut log is absolutely beautiful, just amazing! I was so excited to see the beautiful colors and grain.

Each flitch is around 14+ inches wide.

All of these boards were stacked in order of the cut and will be slowly air-dried. The boards will be stacked 10″ off the ground on a stable base. So that air can pass over each board, sticker boards are placed between each board. The sticker boards are all the same size or it will cause warped boards as the boards would be unevenly  stacked. Once the stack is completed, each end of the boards will be painted with Anchorseal 2 to seal the ends of each board. Sealing the ends prevents splitting, cracking and lows down the drying process.

All of these boards were cut to a thickness of 5/4. It generally takes  about a year to dry 5/4 before it can be used. The moisture content was 100% when these were cut. The moisture content will be monitored during the drying process. As I monitor the moisture I will also make sure that the flitches do not dry too fast which will cause splitting and cracking.

I hope you enjoyed seeing how logs are milled!  These boards are going to make some beautiful pieces!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Walnut Cutting Boards

Photo credit Tricia Buice

 

 

 

 

 

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Walnut Slabs

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I had time today to check a few boards for nails. After cutting a couple boards to shorter lengths I ran them thru the planner. A couple passes thru the planner on each side was all I needed to do to get the boards planned.

If you missed my previous post about this walnut, check out the before pictures in my previous post from yesterday, Wood Gloat and now the after pictures in this post.

I was very happy to see what I had, great color, light and dark browns, a little black streaking and red streaking with cream color running down the edges. Beautiful colors, grain and character too!

I wiped a little of tung oil on one of the boards to bring out the colors, I can only believe that the remaining boards will be just as good or better. I am very pleased and super happy with what I found, just excellent!! This walnut will be excellent for a nice piece of furniture.

My wife took one look at the walnut and also thought is was very beautiful and then asked me to make her a new stepping stool. I made her a stepping stool many years ago using red oak which she uses in the kitchen all the time. So my first project will be making my wife Debbie a new stool. This afternoon I sketched out three designs for her to look at but she is having a hard time deciding which one she likes the best.

So, I’ve decided that I will post my process of making the stepping stool from start to finish which will be in multiple post. My first post will be coming soon!

My Work

Click picture below to link for more information about my cutting boards!