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Walnut board

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flatcreek

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Had this walnut board given to me. It's between 12 and 14 feet long, 18 to 24 wide and about 2.5 inches thick and has been stickered for about a dozen years. I would like to make some stocks out of it but I'm not sure. What the thoughts out there, got to be some good in it.
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You may get some breech loading shotgun stocks out of it. Get a nice plank from a gunstock supplier if you can afford it, less surprises. I quit using black walnut, straight grain maple for me now! I can’t begin to tell you how many gift walnut and cherry planks turned out to be fit for only firewood!
 
You paid nothing for it so you only have time in it. You can get a pattern and cut out some stocks then run them through a surface planer or do it the hard way with a roughing hand plane and see what you got. Nothing to lose here - "Get er done"!
 
Looks like a couple long rifle stocks possible , and maybe a Jaeger stock , too. In the yrs. I been messing w/ gunstocks , a good many black walnut pieces have crossed my bench , especially during the 1970's , and early 1980's. I usually gathered my own wood , and found three distinct different types of it , just enough differences to make the wood unique to the location in Pa. where it was cut. Black walnut from Pa. is my favorite Appalachian Mtn. longrifle wood. It's already black w/o all the chemicals folks use to make nice curly maple into black wood. From the Susquehanna River area , some of it has reddish to purple stripes in the grain direction. In Western Pa. , walnut from a long the Monongehela River woods , is hard , dark , and very fine grain. Sadly , my dear old Dad had a dirty , hanging above the coal bin original old longrifle stock blank cut from western Pa. walnut , back in the 1950's. Dad was a modern rifle tinkering guy , and made a double brl. shotgun stock from the longrifle blank butt stock , and a bunch of shotgun forearms for guys w/ missing forearms. What I would'a given for that old stock later in life , when I got interested in black powder m/l guns. That one would'a been in my closet. I made a discovery about walnut from central Pa. , Juanita River area wood.. Some of the wood can be long grained , with a blondish striping mixed in the grain patterns. I'm not referring to the white sapwood in the outer layers of grain , but the layers between the core center and the outer white wood. I accidently found this wood stainable with alcohol stains , like yellow , orange , and red. The stained wood looks like a dark French walnut , like I saw used on a WW1 .303 British SMLE rifle butt stock. The most amazing source of curley walnut was a huge four ft. across the stump walnut tree hit by lightning , and torn up by wind in a front yard along Penn's Creek about 10 miles up from the Susquehanna River . My friend brought his portable band sawmill to the families' front yard , and cut it into longrifle thickness slabs. The curl was top to bottom in the huge tree , and an amazing blessing to those guys wanting fancy walnut stocks. ......Sorry folks , I'm way out in the weeds on this testimony , so I'll stop. Happy walnut to all of you..oldwood
 
Had this walnut board given to me. It's between 12 and 14 feet long, 18 to 24 wide and about 2.5 inches thick and has been stickered for about a dozen years. I would like to make some stocks out of it but I'm not sure. What the thoughts out there, got to be some good in it.View attachment 346067View attachment 346068
Oh heck yeah !! Those dimensions , photo ain't loaded yet , you have gun stocks ! Ive made N.W. trade gun stocks from boards a lot smaller than that ! One of them was only barely over 1 3/4" thick !! Thinnest one ive ever done ... Those thick boards are usually scarce ....Not too many folks making planks for M/L stocks ! Any weird grain spots , knots etc. throw your pattern on there and make sure you can work around and bad spots , etc . Best of luck ....
 

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Too thin? At 2.5”? Are you building 4bores?
You'd be surprised how much can be lost getting a slab flat. I can send you sad pictures of a slab build gone bad. Sometimes free isn't free in the end. Yes I do build from slabs and have a dedicated wood shop with all the tools and equipment. I would encourage flatcreek to start with a pistol. Get the book Recreating The American Longrifle.
 

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You'd be surprised how much can be lost getting a slab flat. I can send you sad pictures of a slab build gone bad. Sometimes free isn't free in the end. Yes I do build from slabs and have a dedicated wood shop with all the tools and equipment. I would encourage flatcreek to start with a pistol. Get the book Recreating The American Longrifle.
You do not need to get the slab flat, just the blank. Narrow down the cup and you loose a lot less wood off of width. Stop thinking like a modern builder and think like the old timers did, who never had the luxury of modern methods. They couldn’t waste wood that took years to dry naturally.
 
The slab is relatively flat. I would clean it up so I could see the grain and cut blanks then plane it flat. I have a planer and wide belt big enough to handle the hole board, I'm pretty familiar with working with wood I built stairs and rail systems for 40 years and still have a full shop. Check out Snyder Stairs Llc on facebook.
 
The slab is relatively flat. I would clean it up so I could see the grain and cut blanks then plane it flat. I have a planer and wide belt big enough to handle the hole board, I'm pretty familiar with working with wood I built stairs and rail systems for 40 years and still have a full shop. Check out Snyder Stairs Llc on facebook.
I would cut blanks first then put thru the planer. Wet the board if you need to see the grain. There is some obvious compression curl already.
 
There is some fair curl by the large crack. A nice pattern around the large knot, but also some pretty obvious punk wood.
Going to drop a decent sized black walnut this winter. Very twisted up trunk, with large forks. Will chainsaw mill it as 12/4 slabs. Stump will be cut at 48” above the ground, and dug out. The only reliably good wood is in the root/stem junction. Crap shoot, but the tree is under cut by erosion and going to fall anyway.
Worst case, your slab and my tree render kinfe handles, revolver grips or “horse pistol” stocks. Best case, a stock or two and the other items listed. It’s just black walnut, a noxious weed in sw TN.
 
If it's relatively flat, run it through planer with some light cuts to expose the figure some. Same could be done with a wide belt sander. Every now and then I'll install 40 grit on my 38" and flatten pieces.itss pretty aggressive.
 

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