American Black Walnut Prices.

American Black Walnut , juglans nigra, is also known as Eastern Black Walnut or American Walnut. Once abundant in the eastern lowland forests, where the soil was deep and rich, it is becoming rare. 150 feet tall , 50-foot clear boles and 6-foot diameters were once common. Black Walnut was the most highly prized fine quality commercial hardwood in America. It was exported to England from Virginia from 1610 onwards. During the Colonial and Federal periods solid walnut wood was widely used in every sort of homemade furniture imaginable, but the fine grain was rarely appreciated. Most pieces were covered with a coat of paint! So scrape beneath the paint of old furniture. You never know what you might discover. The rage for walnut As a fine furniture wood, walnut came into its own from around 1830-1860, with Empire, Victorian, and Revival styles. By this time, black walnut wood was already becoming scarce. During pioneer times in the Midwest states, black walnut was still very abundant, although the extremely large trees were already gone. The tree was often cut for rudimentary things as split rail fences. Millions of railroad ties were made from walnut, since it resisted rot when in contact with the soil. We curse this sort of waste of fine timber today, but this sort of thing is still going on across the world with other valuable species of very slow growing trees. The latest heyday of black walnut occurred in the 1970’s when walnut was king and prices went through the ceiling. Since then, because of economic factors, export tariffs, and preferences for lighter woods, walnut temporarily took a back seat to black cherry, red and white oak, pecan, and even sugar maple. Black walnut has now recovered its pre-eminence and is competing with black cherry and white oak as one of the fine North American hardwoods. However, its price reflects its rarity.

Walnut Boards in stock 27.11.07. For sale unfitted,and unfinished.

Dried to 8 to 10% average moisture content. These will lay over underfloor heating, but should be acclimatised first. We will measure the moisture content again before despatch and let you know the levels. Flooring over underfloor heating usually levels out at around 9.4%

It is very nicely machined to 20mm thick, planed, tongued and grooved with stress relief grooves on the rear face. The tongues and grooves fit very nicely and snugly, with no play whatsoever. It is square ended and finished with square arrises.

There are board widths in the following quantities at the following prices which are quoted exclusive of VAT. which is payable.

The third picture is of some of the wider boards reared up. Even though not finished you can see the fabulous depth in the silky grain. You can see this and the apparent shine on the timber because the machining is so very well done - and if you know anything about machining wide board flooring, you will know that this in itself is quite rare.

This lovely walnut comes in long lengths mostly in the range of 2 to 3 metres. However, there are a few short boards. This photo shows the short boards which have been sorted from the parcel. As you see, the shorts are still of good size. When laying up a floor, one starts a row with a short board and then use a ready cut short board to finish the row. They are only wasted if you lay them into the middle of a long row of longer boards.