Black walnut

Second Of Two Parts

CHARACTERISTICS and PROPERTIES

!!mcr WALNUT is heavy wood, lJaveraging 38 lbs per cubic foot. The wood is hard, with a specific gravity of 0.51; strong, stiff and highly resistant to shock.

In durability under conditions favorable to decay, the heartwood of black walnut ranks with the most durable woods including cedars, chest' nut, and black locust. It can be satisfactorily kiln-dried or air-dried and holds its shape well after seasoning.

Black walnut is normally straightgrained, works easily with hand tools, and has excellent machining properties. The wood finishes beautifully with a handsome grain pattern. It takes and holds paints and stains exceptionally well. It can be readily polished and satisfactorily glued.

The heartwood is chocolate brown and occasionally has darker, sometimes purplish, streaks. The sapwood is nearly white. Forest-grown trees generally have dark-colored heartwood and a narrow band of sapwood not more than I inch wide. In opengrown trees the heartwood is generally lighter in color and the sapwood is about 3 inches wide.

It is common practice to darken

Story at a Glance

Highly prized black walnut is a heavy wood, widely regarded for the beauty of its grain pattern it is straight grained, strong, easily worked and very expensive . . Part 2 of 2 parts.

the sapwood by steaming or staining to match the heartwood. The annual rings of growth are marked by manY pores barely visible on the end grain at the beginning of each year's growth and by denser growth at the end of the season.

The wood frequently contains altemate light and dark stripes that give figure effects in boards and veneer. Wavy or curly grain near knots, abnormal or irregular growth, crooks, forks, burls (an abnormal growth of wood tissue), and stumPwood also result in a variety of handsome figures. Burls from very old trees have a bird's eye figure on a glossy dark groundwork ranging from almost jet black to lighter shades of brown. This gives them an exceptionally high value.

Principal Uses

The outstanding use of black walnut is for fumiture and fixtures. Other important uses are for radio, television and phonograph cabinets, sewing machines, gunstocks, and interior finish.

It is used either in the form of solid wood cut fiom lumber or in the form of plywood made by gluing sheets of plain or figured veneer to both sides of a core.

Intermediate sheets (crossbands) are often used between the faces and core to form five-ply crossbanded plywood. In all cases the direction of the grain in the various layers or plies is at right angles to the grain in the adjacent ply or plies.

Until 1964 a common thickness of black walnut face veneer was onetwenty-eighth of an inch. ln 1964 thickness of face veneer was reduced to one-thirty-sixth of an inch. The core and intermediate plies are usually made of less expensive woods, such as basswood or yellow-poplar. Cores vary in thickness. They may be veneer, lumber one-fourth inch thick and up, or particleboard.

Black walnut veneer is made by the slicing method and, to a limited extent, by the rotary-cut method. In the slicing method, a thick slab (flitch) sawed from the log is clamped to a movable bed that slides up and down in diagonal guides.

The flitch is sliced into veneer with a heavy adjustable knife that is advanced after each cut. In the rotarycut method the log is revolved against a constantly advancing knife. Black walnut veneer is occasionallv made by sawing.

Black walnut furniture is made principally for dining rooms and bedrooms. Dining room tables of black walnut stand up especially well under the hard usage such tables often get. Bookcases, desks, living room tables, and many other pieces are also frequently made of walnut. The wood is in demand for office furniture. It is widely used in all kinds of radio, television, and phonograph cabinets, and piano cases.

For the highest grade cabinets, plywood panels, faced with figured veneer, are used. For interior finish in cafes and public buildings where striking effects are desired, walnut is very popular.

The wood is particularly suitable for gunstocks because of its ability to stay in place after seasoning, its fine machining properties, its uniformity of texture combined with a slight coarseness that renders it easily gripped, and its sufficient strength and shock-resisting ability without excessive weight.

Figured black walnut stocks are used for the more expensive shotguns and sporting rifles.

The nuts of black walnut have long been used as an article of food, principally in candy making and in breads and cakes.

The early settlers in America valued the black walnut trees not only for their wood and nuts but also for other things such as rich brown dye from the green hulls of the nuts. The hulls may also have some importance for medicinal pur' poses. Recent research showed that extracts from the green walnut hull were capable of immobilizing fish, mice, rats, and rabbits. Walnut shells when cleaned and processed are used as abrasives and in filter materials.

Early Redwood Promotion

Your article in the March issue of The Merchant Magazine entitled "Redwood Giant of the Past" by Gage McKinney was of real interest to me, since I worked for the Hammond Sales Co. in New York from about 1929 to 1939, and represented them for many years after that. I thought Mr. McKinney wrote a very interesting article that covered many of the important happenings during the lifetime of the Hammond Lumber Co.

I was a little surprised that there wasn't more said about the marketing of redwood in the early days. Those like myself who spent a great deal of time promoting redwood on the East Coast feel that this was when the real tough job of selling redwood took place.

It sounds rather simple now to read about how redwood is sold. Only a few people can imagine that we, in promotional sales, contacted such prospects as might use redwood, as the Atlantic City boardwalk, redwood for greenhouse bench lumber, and 6 x 6 construction posts for the New Jersey state highway department.

For instance, at that time,Hammond was not double-end trimming their lumber, so we have come a long ways.

Alden K. Hay Wholesale Lumber Derbv. Vt.

BIG SALES TRIP??

At the start of a 2 month tour, [here in the German wine country] I found a great need for redwood stakes on hillside vineyards. Will seek more uses for that scarce California redwood we have at home.

It's on to England for 3 weeks and then back to the continent. Will hit ten countries to line up all available customers.

Best Ever, 'Pete ' Sharp

Peipatetic Pete, now retired from Catifornia Redwood Sales, Sonta Rosa, Ca., no doubt will try and convince the IRS thot he's on a grueling sales tip. -ed.

HI.JMBOLDT CRAB FEED

I have just received The Merchant Magazine. You did an excellent job in displaying the Humbolt Hoo Hoo Club Crab feed. (See MaY, P. 42)

Laurn R. Champ

Snark of the Universe Hoo Hoo International Goddard, Ks.67052

551 a word, min. 25 words (25 words = $13.75). Phone number counts as one word. Ads with border $3.50 extra. Headline or centered type $3.50 extra. Box numbered ads are $3.50 extra. Names of advertisers using a box number cannot be released. Address all

Help Wanted

NEWPORT BEACH, CA. OPPORTUNITY

EXCEPTIONAL opportunity for experienced lumber traders. Excellent commission plan plus liberal fringe benefits. Get in on the ground floor with a first rate company. Deluxe working conditions in Newport Beach, Ca. Call Ken Gagne, Delta Forest Products, (714) 640484r.

SOUTH BAY Ca. area lumberyard seeking qualified counter salesman. Send resumes to Box 227, c/o The Merchant Magazine.

MANAGER for retail lumber yard in SF Bay area. Experience in lumber and building material sales, ability to work with people. Previous management experience not essential. Write box 273. clo The Merchant Magazine.

Aduertisements

replies to box number shown in ad in care of The Merchant Magazine, 4500 Campus Dt., Suite 480, Newport Beach, Ca. 92660. Make checks payable to The Merchant Magazine. Mail copy to above address or call (714) 549-8393. Deadline for copy is the 22nd, of the month.

Help Wanted For Sale

EXPERIENCED RETAIL building material qmployee for S.J. Valley independent. Clerking, estimating, and some buying duties. Prefer building/technical oriented. Responsible, permarent, good character references only. Evenings (209) 8264290, or write Fred, Builders Lumber Co.. P.O. Box 1445, Los Banos. Ca. 93635.

Busin Ess Opportu Nities

RETAIL LUMBER, hardware, and building materials business. Young, aggresive, fastgrowing company located in Grand Junction, Colorado. Area undergoing tremendous growth with great future and is terrific place to live. Excellent location: will sell witl real estate or lease. Direct inouiries to Box 278, c/o The Merchant Magazine.

BOSTITCH portable hydraulic truss press. Uses ll0v a.c. power. Jig set up, portable tables. Can be transported in pickup for on-the-job assembly. Also permanent tables for set up and factory. Makes standard roof trusses. flat roof trusses or floor trusses. Ask for Don Ness (2M) 622-0605 or (206) 833-0609 after six.

1969 GMC, engine 318 Detroit 8V71N. Transmission 5 and 4. Flatbed with roller. Trailer. l8' utility flatbed with roller, 2-axle - $14,000. Phone (213) 5964475, (714) 527-2285., lO'142 Los Alamitos Blvd., our 76th yegr. Contact Gqlllt Vos.

1977 KENWORTH TRUCK modal K-I00 with Reliance hailer. Operated less than six months, only 40,000 miles. Engine Cat 3406PCTA. Call Ed Fountain Sr. (213) {n1-1 1Rr

6' RESAW Turner roller bearing, 8 blades. 100 hp., new series Westinghouse. In feed & out feed rolls $8500. Call (2Og) 7346823 or write; Roger Howard, 1213 N. Elm Circle, Twin Falls, Id. 83301.

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YOUNG, NEAT, aggressive man as working manager of hard materials yard. Experienced in brick-block-stone-plaster-drvwall-stuccoinsulation-roofing. South Coist Building Materials, 2220 E. South St., Long Beach, Ca. 90805 (213) 634-7100.

3x4 AND I{IDER and 4x4 and wider twisted ard weathered Douslas Ffu S4S. Call Wm. Hunter, Hunter - Woodworks, (2t3)775 2s44 or (2r3)_83s-s671.

One beam Yard or Jobsite or a carload delivery

IVe are proud to announce t/)e acqilisition of General IX/oodworker, Inc. of Knox, Indiana, a ftrm utitlt &y hiln and custom nillingfacilities.

Lumber Co..

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Northern

CALIFORNIA

822.5151 SAMoA

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Rocky Mountain States Colorado

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