His Great Grandfather Planted this Walnut Tree and it was going to be Bulldozed

November 23, 2023
Sawing

Today we have a saw mill adventure! I’m here with John and this big, big walnut log.

John grew up on a farm just outside of Chaska, MN. It was his grandfather’s farm, and his great-grandfather settled it in about 1860. This walnut tree was probably planted in about 1880 by his great-grandfather. They took the farmstead down recently and put a roundabout there, but John got to this walnut tree before it was bulldozed. There had been a row of walnut trees on the property, but this was the only one left after the second to last one got blown over in a storm in 1966. But this tree survived that storm and kept growing.

John has his own saw, but this log is a little too big for it. The log is about six and a half feet with a crotch, and it’s 39 inches down at the butt. It should make for some interesting wood, because I see a lot of ripples, which is promising.

Here’s a first look. You can see that it’s oxidized already where the air got to the butt. A promising first look!

First slab is pretty clear, but has some pretty colors.

Personally, I’m more of a fan of this cool little cookie thing.

This is already a good size, and we’re not too far into the log yet. This one is 50 inches across at the splay, 35 inches at the butt, and about eight feet long. That’s a good slab.

Getting some figure coming out now.

Here is a slab that came from near the middle of the log. It’s a nice slab. It’s got quite a nice crotch feather.

This next one has a wide beefy band of crotch figure.

And this one has some fun stuff in it too, some figure, a rot pocket, and some buttress figure at the end.

I want to thank John for bringing this historical log. We got some giant slabs out of this, and it was a beautiful day for slabbing. If you want to see more from John, you can check his stuff out at Zstrees.com

John’s Website | Z’s Trees – https://www.zstrees.com/

Thank you as always for joining. I greatly appreciate it. If you have any questions or comments on the sawmill, please feel free to leave a comment. As always, I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have. And until next time, happy woodworking!