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Owen Phillips
Owen Phillips

Best Place To Buy Walnut Lumber



*** All walnut slabs and walnut lumber can only be sold kiln dried with the bark removed. This applies to all members of the walnut family (Juglans) which include but are not limited to Black Walnut, Butternut, English Walnut, European Walnut, Claro Walnut and Persian Walnut




best place to buy walnut lumber



's get placed here -->XReplies jasalomon Feb 03, 2021 01:11pm #1Watching this thread to see what others come up with. I've purchased from Aura Hardwood in San Jose and Macbeath in Berkeley. I like both of them. As somebody who moved here a few years ago after living in the Boston area for 30 years, definitely feeling like a hardwood lumber desert in general. I believe Aura just got bought by a bigger Southern CA based company so not sure what that will mean for their existing locations.


I never had much of a problem buying lumber when I lived in Ohio and NorthCarolina. When I moved to Utah I purchased from the McBeath where the services was excellent. Now that I live in the central valley of CA I found a few places in Sacramento that are friendly and affordable but the selection not so much. In nine months I'll retire my day job and head down to Berkley.


Check out Global Wood Source in Campbell. I really enjoy buying walnut at The Walnut Place in Woodland, a bit of a drive from the Bay Area, but worth it. Almost all of Robert's lumber is quarter sawn, and is 4/4 is actually thicker than an inch, and his 8/4 is thicker than two inches.


So here we stand in a familiar lumber paradox: pricing is way up on Walnut, but quality is still perceived as way low. But is it really? Walnut grading standards have been in place for a long time, and lumber mills have been meeting that grade all that time. Walnut will never meet the same quality as species like Maple or Oak or even Cherry. The key to consider is the minimum allowables on the grades and what you are actually getting. Clear two faced Walnut is really at a premium, but single face is a lot more reasonable. Still we often supply our customers with sizes that far exceed what actually meets the grade according to NHLA.


Black walnut is a prime hardwood with a hard, dense, heavy, tight-grained wood with a lustrous patina. It is one of the dominating lumbers in the furniture industry, preferred by woodworkers for its workability and elegant finish. However, unlike other hardwoods, black walnut gets lighter instead of darker as it ages.


The black walnut board and lumber prices vary according to supply, demand, and production. Lumber grades also influence the variation in prices. Black walnut is expectedly costly as a premium domestic hardwood of rare species.


Black walnut is popular and readily available in many areas. However, it is one of the most challenging hardwoods to identify, given its many species. Walnuts have about 21 species commercially sold as lumber and with almost identical wood identification.


You can buy black walnut lumber from trusted specialty lumber stores like Alderfer Lumber Company Inc. Alderfer has a wide array of hardwood, properly identified and sold without mixed-ups. Thus, you can ensure that you get authentic black walnut boards for the best value.


American Black Walnut is a straight-grained, medium density hardwood with beautiful dark red heartwood and steamed dark sapwood. It is distinct from other walnuts found in the American west and south-central states. Our Black Walnut hardwood comes from North Central Ohio, where the wood is especially prized for its color and working properties. It machines and bends well and can be polished or stained to an exceptional finish. Applications for Black Walnut lumber include furniture, paneling, cabinets, doors, paddles, coffins, flooring, and rifle stock.


Hardwoods are stacked on pallets, so someone may have to use a forklift to pull the type of wood you want, but I was impressed with selection, quality, and price. They have a small area with "exotic" woods, on display, so you can examine the individual boards. Their sheet good selection included all the usual furniture and hardwood plywoods, Baltic birch in multiple grades, many types of Melamine (hope I don't have to go there again), MDF, 3/8 inch bending ply, etc. This is not the best place to just poke and browse through the boards, but it is my first place to call and place an order for pick up or delivery.


Fine Lumber is a great place to start if you are not experienced in buying hardwood, or if you need a special board or two. The folks are really nice and helpful, and unlike most lumber yards, you are welcome to browse through their well-labeled stacks of lumber. Most of their lumber is skim-planed (4/4 lumber planed to 15/16), so you have a pretty good idea what the board is like, but can still plane it more to perfect the surface and remove any dings. They also have planed and sanded lumber (more expensive), mouldings, hardwood plywood (walnut, cherry, etc., with ply core, combi-core, MDF core, and lumber core). They have some "tropical/exotic" hardwoods, wood such as quarter-sawn white oak, and even recycled old pine and river recovered southern yellow pine for the New Yankee Workshop projects. You can pick your boards from the racks, then go to the office and a clerk will measure your selections and check you out. The prices for hardwoods are quite competitive, but some of their sheet goods are pretty expensive... for example, their red oak ply was almost as cheap as the big box, but I once paid $54.96 per sheet for 1/4 inch walnut plywood, and subsequently paid as little as $26.15 for the same item from their competitors.


This is where I learned about industrial or wholesale purchasing. You place the order with a salesman, by phone or in the office, and get wood in the order it comes off the bundle. Good and bad, but the stacks haven't been picked over by every woodworker ahead of you. Rough cut lumber has generally not been skim planed, so you will have to do some basic planing before you can select boards for a project. You don't need to be special to buy this way, but you do need to act like a wholesale customer. They expect to take your good-size order, fill it quickly, and move on, not meditate on each board. They will deliver larger orders.


I visited several years ago, but not bought from them yet. They are (or were) a wholesale-only lumber yard, where you place your order in person or by phone, they pull the wood, and either deliver it to you, or you can pick up the bundle they have prepared. You may look at the lumber in their warehouse, but there is no option for selecting boards. They do sell hardware at attractive prices.


Walnut is one of my favorite furniture woods. But in 20 years I have never found a good source in Texas. Only one routine order and one special order in all those years pleased me, and the "good" routine order would have been considered only average quality up north. When I have been able to pick through boards at a lumber yard, it is hard to find enough to do a good size project. As a result, I have brought walnut back from Minnesota/Iowa a couple times when visiting my wife's family. And I have bought several hundred board feet from Wall Lumber in North Carolina.


Why do I tell this story? Because I have seen several people look for walnut at a lumber yard, and when they see what is sold in Texas as walnut, they rate the lumber yard bad and leave. My bad luck with walnut in Texas applies across all the lumber yards I have bought from, so it must be a problem with the lumber sources that Texas lumber yards buy walnut from. Or the fact that Texans have come to accept this walnut as "normal" - a quality that many of us Yankees would consider "bad."


All lumber and slabs are kiln dried on-site in computer controlled kilns. They operate two bandsaw sawmills (soon three) and are set up to saw logs, up to 7 ft in diameter. Their custom built 100" wide jointer/planer can flatten large slabs and tabletops. Woodshop services are also available including: straight line ripping, jointing, planing, resawing, and widebelt sanding. If you have your own logs, they offer a full range of services. They build custom furniture, specializing in large dining and conference tables. Fireplace mantles from native Texas hardwoods are also available.


Dakota Hardwoods4441 CentergateSan Antonio, Texas 78217 Phone: 210-967-WOOD (9663) My "full time woodworker" friend uses Dakota as his primary lumber yard - he says it is the only one he recommends without reservation. The best folks at the other lumber yards appear to have ended up here. (Sounds like Dakota's approach in Austin, hiring the best staff from the competition).


Hartzell Wood Stock in Lime Springs in Northeast Iowa is run by Jim and Jana Hartzell. Jim was a wood buyer and lumberman processing thousands of trees per week until he had a lumbering accident that left him paraplegic. He found a new career using his knowledge of wood in a small-town lumber yard. They are great people to deal with. If they don't have what you need in stock (they are small), Jim can probably get it for you. I couldn't leave without loading up my minivan with some odd size pieces of very nice walnut that Jim gave me at a great price. A good friend bought a large quantity for the trim and cabinets in the house he was building and was very pleased. Another woodworker we know in the area recommends them highly. Much of their wood is local wood that they had milled and dried by people they hired, not just bought by the carload for resale. Their published prices are attractive. Regular freight for small orders is expensive, as for everyone. They are a great place to buy in person, but aren't always great at calling back as promised, so plan on making an extra effort if you deal with them. Their web site is no longer active so try Hartzell Woodstock, 111 Center St. PO Box 176 Lime Springs, IA 52155. (563) 566-2298. One Internet listing gives the address as 10456 70th St, which I suspect is their home - when my brother-in-law picked up my last load of about 500 bf of walnut from them (he was coming to visit), he spent some time running around - the lumber yard is not open full time. 041b061a72


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