Bought some walnut

[Clark]

I responded to a craigslist ad purporting to have some walnut lumber for sale. It was up the north shore and I was skeptical of what I was diving into. It's not often you find walnut lumber for sale on the shores of Gitche Gumee. I met the guy selling it and the story is that his friend, now a widow, had a husband who was into wood working and he bought a "truckload" of walnut lumber back in the 60's. Had it shipped to their place from Iowa. Now he's selling off what's left over for the widow.

We get to her place and it is walnut with some other stuff mixed in but there are pieces 16" wide (but short) and some 16' long (with wane). It looks like there is some good stuff in the mix, so I pick and choose what I want. For the walnut hounds:



I spend the amount I had planned on spending, wish there were more green to spend and head home. I started planing it and notice some of the amateurish chainsaw work that was done on at least one of the pieces:



Sure, everyone has their first day in the woods but the end of another piece made this mystery all the more strange:



Does this lumber possibly represent the changeover from axes to chainsaws? That's unlikely but fun to think about. What was going on in Iowa in the 60's that made them continue to use axes? If you have insight into this I would be all ears.

Clark

PS - The other mystery of this wood can be found here.

[Gary_C]

Looks normal to me. The sloped ends are probably from the notch that was cut and there are signs of bore cutting.

Walnut is not easy to fell without doing some damage like pulled fibers and splits. Many lumber and veneer buyers prefer to fell their own trees to prevent damage and loss in value. Some of the old timers, my father in law included, would fell the tree over the saw as they called the practice. It involved starting the cut on the side you wanted it to fall and cut straight thru. At about half way you had to widen your cut so as to not pinch the bar but you just keep cutting straight thru. You had absolutely no directional control but you never had any splits or pulled fibers either. You also needed two saws at all times to retrieve pinched bars.  ;D

[nativewolf]

I don't know it does look axe cut to me too.  If he bought it in the 60s who knows when it was cut.  Logs could have sat around ....

Nice color though and ...it is nicely air dried sitting for 5 decades.

[Clark]

Those are definitely axe cuts. It's an interesting relic from the past and it really surprised me.

I'm super happy with the color and grain of these boards. When I get time, I need to plane the 14' board I have...the initial inspection looks good!

Clark

[mike_belben]

My first thought was beaver.