Sawing Walnut for Flooring.

[DR Buck]

I got a customer bringing me a load of 8',  24"-30" dia  walnut logs he wants sawn for flooring.   Although I've done lots of walnut, I not done anything specific for flooring.   

Question are:

How should I cut it?   Quartersawn or flat sawn?
How thick?  4/4, 5/4, what? 
Any particular widths, or wide as possible and let them rip is down to size?
I'll also be drying it for them, so I guess I want to take it down to around 6%?

[Larry]

I would leave all of those decisions up to the customer.  There is a lot of different ways to make flooring and it is depends on what machinery your customer has access to. 

[Brad_S.]

While there certainly is merit to what Larry says, I also tend to feel the customer doesn't always know what is the best decision. For example, many people read that quarter sawn lumber is more stable than flat sawn, so they get it in their head that that is what they want. What the don't understand is that QS walnut can be very boring. FWIW, I would consult with the customer but I would push them in the direction of letting you grade saw the walnut for best appearance and let the person making the flooring decide what size it should end up.
I usually cut grade lumber heavy, but for flooring, I cut 1 inch exactly if they are finishing at 3/4". Flooring is usually narrow stock, so if lumber should cup in drying, it can be ripped thinner. Also, one face will never be seen, so if a board doesn't clean up, that face can be down. Dry down to 6-8%.
In short, just do what you always do when producing grade lumber.

[Rail-O-Matic]

What about the root of the tree, is it available, if so dig her out and potentially make thousands of dollars selling the timber as gun stocks.

Floor boards need to be score cut on one side to prevent warping once they are down.

Walnut for flooring seems a waste, when you can make more money cutting some nice book matched vaneers, but if the customer wants boards, then floor boards it has to be.

get the trunk and root if you can.

[scsmith42]

A sawmiller who is a very good friend of mine did his entire house in black walnut flooring.  It is absolutely spectacular.

He cut a thick 4/4, planed down to 7/8", air dried it and installed it about a year later.  It is all flatsawn (with a few quartersawn boards).  It is installed over a wooden subfloor, I believe that the subfloor is also 1".

He left the sapwood on it, and the contrast is striking.

He T&G it, but did not cut a bevel.  Installed, he left his toungues about 1/8" longer than the grooves, so there is a slight gap between the boards.  It does not look bad at all.

[KGNC]

Back when i was in school I had a summer job sanding hardwood floors. We did one house with black walnut floor and I thought that stuff would kill me. The dust was so fine it would come right through the bag on the dust collector and find any gap in your dust mask.
I was blowing walnut 2x4s out of my nose for a week!
After we finished sanding we spent forever trying to get the dust out of the rooms so we could put the finish on.