Walnut Sapwood-Good or Bad

[Jjoness4]

I am new at sawing walnut but have a really good inventory of walnut logs that need to be sawed.  My question is should I eliminate all sapwood in my sawing and edging or is some desirable to your customers.  My logs run from almost no sapwood to some that may be 30% sapwood.  Do most woodworkers eliminate the sapwood in their projects.  I will do a mixture of 4/4 boards and 2 inch slabs.

[TKehl]

The answer to all your questions is yes.   :D

Some cut it off, others use the contrast to advantage.

My thoughts:  1. It's easier to cut off than to reattach.  2.  If you paid for logs and cut the sapwood, you would have to increase the price to get the same $ from the log plus a bit more for your time.  3.  If you leave sapwood on, you have something people can't buy from big box stores.   ;)

[bluthum]

Depends on your market, also the logs. Some places the sapwood degrades the unit price but on the other hand a sapwood trim will diminish your footage yield.

A tapered log might have a lot of sapwood on the butt end which if trimmed off yields a narrower board that would have otherwise been a wider board with all black on most of it's length. Etc.

In my personal work the sapwood is rarely desirable and in commercial markets it is less money per mbf. Selling to hobbyists is another matter, giant live edge slabs might bring a premium. Some wood workers will get all agog about features that commercial users consider flaws in lumber.

Some commercial processors used to steam the walnut which can darken the sapwood [and maybe even make the white wood more stable]. I don't know if that is still a common practice these days as it is another expense.

My coffee hasn't kicked in yet but the point I'm trying to make is it depends.....   

[nativewolf]

Bluthum is right, the big commercial guys do still steam it, that darkens the wood but lightens the heartwood a tad, makes it look..washed out a bit. 

There is a slight price reduction in walnut for really wide sapwood when you are selling to the graded walnut market.  however it is not more than a 10% or so reduction. 

Hobbyist do sometimes like the contrast but serious woodworkers are usually not buying walnut to make dining tables with sapwood so figure out your market.  If you post some pictures of the logs that could be helpful in giving some tips.  You may find that if you have a few really nice logs you'll get more for the log than the sawn boards on craigslist.  A good sawing log or small veneer with get 4-7/bdft and that is before any waste or work sawing.  Just a thought.

[firefighter ontheside]

My suggestion(I like sapwood) would be to straight edge and then saw leaving one natural edge.  This leaves some sapwood and gives a straight edge. 

[Magicman]

 

 
Let the customers decide.   

[Larry]

For about 10 years I logged and sold walnut I harvested off my farm.  The first year I tried selling retail to hobby woodworkers.  90% didn't want sapwood.  If they did buy sapwood they wanted it cheap.  Most sales were small, less than 100 board foot and the buyers always wanted to go through a big stack.  It was an exercise in frustration and I didn't like it.  I did find I could make small bundles of lumber and sell that way which worked ok.

I than tried selling wholesale.  Thought I was in heaven.  Didn't have to dry the lumber and got paid within two weeks.  I could deliver a 1,000 board foot or more at my leisure. Sapwood was never a defect and paid the same as heartwood.  The only thing is the buyers wanted lumber within a short time of the tree being felled in summer.  They allowed more time in the winter.  The reason is lumber is easier to steam and takes better color when fresh.

It is possible to dry walnut sapwood so its bright white....plenty of air and fresh logs.  Makes the sapwood much more attractive than the cream or yellow color one usually sees.

I no longer sell wholesale or sell walnut.  I still do sell other species retail when I get excess.  Selling it by the bundle works well.  No left overs.

[moodnacreek]

Larry, good post.  I have never been able to dry walnut sap white although  I have seen it done. Also I have hide wide planks from customers and only let them see a few to choose from.  Otherwise they can't make up there mind and have to come back tomorrow with there wife !

[ToddsPoint]

Sapwood is a no-no for gunstocks.  I remove every bit before I lay out a blank.  The big gun companies used blanks with sapwood but they stained it to hide it.

Some of the guys who make duck calls like sappy walnut for the contrast. 

Walnuts that grow fast have wide sapwood.  Slow growers do not.  Many yard trees have wide sapwood as they likely have their roots in sewer or drainage tiles.  Gary

[WDH]

I have found that you need some of all of it.  Tastes vary.  However, I do get frustrated with what I call the "Walnut Heartwood Snobs".  They do not want any sapwood, and that is hard to accomplish around here as all walnut trees have sapwood.  If they want to pick out all the boards free of sapwood, I simply add a premium to the price.  It still aggravates me, though. 

[moodnacreek]

Although it is a bad policy to keep logs any longer than necessary I have wondered if there is a way to get walnut to stain it's sap wood brown.  It happens in the summer but not completely . I suppose the bottom of the logs stay cooler and stay white.  If you turned to the sun, that might work but the end  splits would be terrible.

[drobertson]

I would surely save all of it, big mills do steam in the kilning process, there is no degradation of quality with this process if done proper. It seems to me many walnut buyers are more concerned  at times with how the trees are felled,  saw it all edge what needs to be. Watch for Beatles if the bark is left on.

[Tom the Sawyer]

About 65% of what I mill is walnut and it is a very rare occurrence for a client to want the sapwood removed - usually on older logs when the sapwood gets punky.  They may not use the sapwood in a certain project but understand that slabbing off all of the sapwood would leave a very small cant, and it is usually their log.  Most have me mill it live edge (one straight edge) and know that the first and last boards will have a greater percentage of sapwood than those near the middle.

I have had one client who told me he wanted "live-edged" boards, and then asked me to cut off the sapwood, he didn't like the contrast.  He had seen live-edge material from other species and also liked the dark color of walnut.   :-\

[TKehl]

Tom, that's no problem.  Just tell him to leave the lumber on the ground a year or two until the sapwood rots off.   :D

If he doesn't want to wait, send him my way.  I've got a few Walnut logs old enough that the sapwood has already rotted off.   ;)  :D  8)   Nuttin' but heart!

[Jjoness4]

Thanks to all for your input to this thread.  I appreciate your insight.  I just finished watching an episode of "Wisdom of the Crowd" which is what I find here on the Forum.  Good input.  Thanks again.

[OffGrid973]

Never cut the contrasting sapwood off in my opinion. If they are looking to bookmatch slabs to make live edge items they can run a straight edge clamped 2x4 and trim until it meets there need. This way you get paid maximum $ without extra work edging.

[Magicman]

 

 
These bookmatched pieces would not be much without the sapwood.

[YellowHammer]

The problem with sapwood, both in walnut and cherry, is that it dries and shrinks at a different rate than the heartwood.  Sapwood pulls and deforms the heartwood, and causes the finished board to twist and bow some.
 
Commercial kilns go through a steam cycle to reduce this.  DH kilns, at their low temps, especially if over drying, can make it worse.  I've done it many times, as there is a sweet spot on EMC where the board is dry but not starting to turn into a potato chip.  I've also had walnut boards with significant bow or twist, instantly straighten back out when I trim the sapwood off, after kiln drying. 

I leave some sapwood on the boards when sawing these species,  but it's important to balance the sapwood on both sides of the board (easy to do in a live edge slab, sometimes problematic when sawing for grade) and try to not exceed the 90/50 ratio of heartwood to sapwood on the two faces. 

[Jjoness4]

 
These bookmatched pieces would not be much without the sapwood.

What an interesting and beautiful piece.  It's looking at me.

[PA_Walnut]

I leave some on 8/4, but not 4/4. As Yellow says, it the differential in drying rate causes mayhem. I try not to exceed 1/3 per face.

Also have discovered that most furniture builders do not want ANY sap. I build Maloof rockers and want ZERO sap, saving possibly a small amount on the under side of the seat blank if I can get a single-board blank.

I've had an interesting phenomena in mine lately: using Pinesol and Dawn liquid as blade lube and it's turning the sap very green!  :

[Magicman]

These bookmatched pieces would not be much without the sapwood.

What an interesting and beautiful piece.  It's looking at me.

I should have added that I sawed those for FF member Dodgy Loner.

[WIwoodworker]

I try to minimize sapwood on most boards. I generally leave the sapwood on for slabs or really wide boards. If a customer feels strongly about it I can deduct the sap from the bf calculation but I think I've only done that a couple of times in the years I've been selling lumber.

What I don't do is try to squeeze the last inch of thickness out of a log and have a heartwood face and a sapwood face on a board. Drying results in warp, bow or cup almost every time.

[YellowHammer]

Here's a good and typical example of sapwood "pull", or cup induced by sapwood, in a cherry board. I took this pic from a load I just took out of the kiln a couple days ago.  Notice how the sapwood to heartwood ratio on the opposite faces of the board are very unequal, or unbalanced, so the pull or deformation will be unsymmetrical.

Walnut sapwood pull is about the same.
 
Lots of weight are required to try to keep this from happening, but the sapwood and heartwood shrinks at at a different rate, so pull is inevitable to some degree.

[Jjoness4]

Here's a good and typical example of sapwood "pull", or cup induced by sapwood, in a cherry board. I took this pic from a load I just took out of the kiln a couple days ago.  Notice how the sapwood to heartwood ratio on the opposite faces of the board are very unequal, or unbalanced, so the pull or deformation will be unsymmetrical.

Walnut sapwood pull is about the same.



 
Lots of weight are required to try to keep this from happening, but the sapwood and heartwood shrinks at at a different rate, so pull is inevitable to some degree.

Excellent explanation and photo evidence.  Thanks for sharing this!