Dead Walnut tree worth Milling?

[FallbrookFarmer]

Looking for response back from OP.
Pic of tree would help make a response.
The dimensions given don't add up.

Likely, being in CA, it is not the eastern black walnut (Juglans nigra) that is highly valued for its wood. More likely it is Juglans Californica that grows more like a bush or a shrub.
Pics would be important to help with your decision.
But bottom line, it prolly is better than just firewood.

Thanks for all the responses/info.
I think you are probably correct on genus, It looks more like an over grown bush, than a tree.
I would be interested into why Roundup would not kill the tree. This tree, along with a Persimmon and an avocado are just inside my side of the fence that divides our properties, All Kaput. I know that one bit of overspray might not be fatal, but I got a feeling that it was more than once.
I'll try and take some pics and post later.
Thanks again!

 

[nickel plate]

I live in a Central Valley, CA county that has thousands of acres of walnut groves and I see the ranchers constantly tearing out the old, mature trees and re-planting with fresh saplings. The old trees are 100% ground up into mulch by those truck trailer mounted grinders. I have never seen a walnut log being transported out by a truck. The reason is that warm climate walnut trees create soft, wide growth rings with a lot of light colored sapwood and very little heart darkwood and for that reason are undesirable by woodworkers. For the past ten years we have burnt walnut in the woodstove as it is a plentiful source of cord wood out here. Midwest and eastern trees that survive in cold, harsh winter conditions produce superior tight ringed heart stock cants for the furniture/gunstock industry.
The only way for you to tell is to cut it down and see for yourself. Do this asap because the drier the tree gets (it's dead, right?) the harder it will be on you and your chainsaw.

 

[furnitureguy]

Palomar college not to far from you has an urban forestry program that would probably love to have the tree the part of their web site you want is here
Palomar College Cabinet & Furniture Technology
click on urban forestry for the contact info.
Doesn't really matter what species it is, trees grown on the west coast tend to have more color and figure due to growing conditions and other factors tend to have more color and figure than trees in the east grown for lumber.
Tom

 

[furnitureguy]

Google "claro walnut" and check the pricing on the undesiarable west coast trees. The reason that orchard trees don't tend to become lumber is that they are usually to small and they are not encouraged to grow a single tall trunk. One thing they are after when ripping out orchards is the burls which can bring top dollar
This is a piece of furniture I built using walnut from a tree from the Chico California area
Tom

 

[MMagis]

I would be interested into why Roundup would not kill the tree. This tree, along with a Persimmon and an avocado are just inside my side of the fence that divides our properties, All Kaput. I know that one bit of overspray might not be fatal, but I got a feeling that it was more than once.
I'll try and take some pics and post later.
Thanks again!

I was actually thinking of a black walnut tree. Now that I see it's more bush like, it may be possible that Roundup killed it. But, it would take a heck of a dose.

 

[Kernopelli]

Rest assured, your neighbor and his Roundup did not kill your tree.

I don't know about walnut but my wife killed a hard elm two years ago with Roundup...no doubt about it. It was covered with poison oak and she doused it with two good soakings and within a few weeks the leaves of the tree were turning brown and falling off. By the following spring the tree was dead. It was fully maure and completely healthy to that point in time. To make matter worse, it sat on the corner of our property and someone had used it as a fence post for a 4 strand barbed wire fence at some point in time....which leads into the rest of this story.

I think your walnut tree is undoubtedly worth something to someone, finding the right person will be your hurdle. You can try by contacting sawmills or custom lumber suppliers found in the yellow pages but furniture makers, wood workers or gun smiths with their own mill contacts may also be a good way to try to sell it as logs. Kays Supply brings up a point I learned only recently after a storm on May 8th 2009 came through the area we live in. It brought down an unbelievable number of trees and we still have enough hard wood on the ground around here to build a bridge to the moon and back. This lit a fire under me to get going a little faster on building a small bandsaw mill that I had seen in Farm Show magazine last year. I would like to play around with some small scale timber frame construction and there is free wood available for the asking like never before. I have a good friend who's been milling for over 20 yrs and he currently runs a Wood Mizer LT70 and I've been picking his brain a lot lately. I couldn't figure out why so few trees were logged when they did the initial clean up in town. They just came in and simply chipped or burned everything, much of it junk but it included a lot of beautiful hardwoods. As Reed stated and my friend agrees, yard trees pose a high risk of containing metal, rocks, broken glass, concrete, ceramic insulators, wire etc.... all things detrimental to the life of a mill blade and anyone who has milled even recreationally for any amount of time figures this out the hard way. My friend runs a metal detector over every log he mills no matter where it comes from and even logs from the woods contain its fair share of metal but it's usually lead (bullets) and not too rough on blades. The problem with metal detectors is that they do not pick up everything that will ruin a blade, like rocks, glass, cement etc...all which are common in yard trees. To help entice a local mill to cut it into lumber, if that is what you are interested in doing, maybe you can work out a deal to help absorb some of the expense of hitting something not detected. My friend jokes that he always asks someone who brings a tree like this "Just how well do you know this tree?" "Well, I've lived there 40 years and we never drove any nails in it." "You know this tree is a hundred years old don't you? Can you vouch for his previous owner?"

 

[schmism]

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php

That site has a section were you can search for a local sawyer near you. your also likely to get some very reasonable advise from the guys that actuall saw logs as to what to expect for your tree.

 

[MMagis]

I don't know about walnut but my wife killed a hard elm two years ago with Roundup...no doubt about it. It was covered with poison oak and she doused it with two good soakings and within a few weeks the leaves of the tree were turning brown and falling off. By the following spring the tree was dead. It was fully maure and completely healthy to that point in time.

Was that regular Roundup, or a special "brush" version. I was referring to regular glyphosate, as it has limited affects on things other than grasses. The special versions may indeed be more harmful to trees.

 

[wampum]

The price on Walnut depends on the log. If it is large and of veneer quality it is worth more. Because that tree died,it could be bad in the center which would really reduce the value. I milled a large one that had a lot of fence scars on it,and nails. I had to start at about 6 feet above the ground,and it was hollow in the center. I still got enough 16 foot boards to plane and tongue and groove to put in a really nice ceiling at a large area at the top of my stairs.(16x14) Most people I know of, that use it for gun stocks do not go after the straight grain stuff but look at limbs and limb crotches,for different grain patterns. Most logs are not veneer quality,so are just sawn into boards,and are sold by the square footage. Veneer is just that they get hundreds of feet of veneer from a log,and use it on Cabinets and such,thus the reason it is worth more. Here is one site that gives you some idea of the value.Ask Extension - Current Walnut Timber Prices (All About Black Walnut)

 

[Kernopelli]

Was that regular Roundup, or a special "brush" version. I was referring to regular glyphosate, as it has limited affects on things other than grasses. The special versions may indeed be more harmful to trees.

I'm not sure, I picked it up at our local Rural King farm supply but don't know what "formula" it was. It was the only time I had ever bought Roundup brand and didn't (still don't) know there was different kinds. I had no idea anything like that was able to kill trees and I guess at the time I didn't read the directions closely enough. To the defense of the company, she used a considerable amount of undiluted product giving two applications several days apart. Anyway, like I said, within probably 1-2 weeks, we noticed the leaves turning brown and soon after they began falling off. We began to speculate that it was due to the Roundup and dismissed it but before fall, every leaf was gone. By then, we had a pretty good idea that there was nothing else we could attribute it to. The next spring it never had a leaf and the small branches were already brittle. The following spring I cut it down.....This is when I found the barbed wire and started knocking chains off my saw. The lowest strand was at just above ground level ( don't ask me why-- they must have had some really sneaky cows ???) I ended up digging around it with my FEL and shovel and cutting it off about 6" below ground level.