: I have been asked to remove a very large Black Walnut tree from a womans lawn
: as she hates the thing for dropping all of those "ugly and
: bothersome"nuts all over the place, and was very happy to do so.My
: questions are,how would I go about drying the wood to prevent it from
: splitting and what are the potential uses in the boat building arena,
: particularly SOF, if any.Is black walnut suitable for skin boat frames or
: greenland paddles?

Why not just offer to collect all those "ugly and bothersome" nuts for the lady. Once the hulls soften and you can remove the inner nut, you can dry these and sell them, or enjoy their delicious taste yourself.

Black walnut is a very expensive wood to buy. It is beautiful to look at, and because of its cost it is frequently sliced into veneers. Using it for a boat is an extravagance. It will work, but it is heavier than most people would desire for a frame, and much heavier than you would want for a paddle.

What I was going to say origianlly is: "If you have removed the tree in large enough pieces, sell it to some company which will saw it into veneer, and use the money to buy whatever you need for your boat building. "

However, the URL below will take you to a very interesting article from Ohio State University concerning the sale of urban-grown black walnut trees. They point out that you might not be able to find a buyer.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/for-fact/0044.html

If you must make it into lumber yourself, you'll want to saw it into boards and stack them to air dry. For convenience, cut the boards 2 inches thick. Use sticks between each layer of boards to permit air to circulate, keep the stack dry (inside is best, but outside will work if you can shield it from rain) In a year or so the wood will be dry enough to resaw into whatever thickness you wish. Then you can rip these to whatever width you need.

If you cut the wood into 1 inch thick boards it will dry faster, and you can probably rip strips from it for your frame in about 6 months. If your plans call for boards of a certain size, you can make them now, just cut the wood about 1/4 inch larger than you will need. This should cover you for shrinkage. Then, when the wood is dry you can plane away the rough-cut surface and you won;t need to plane off much more to get it down to your desired size.

If you think you'll have a need for thicker stock (say 4x4) then cut a few boards to this thickness now. They will take much longer to dry, but you'll have them. some people suggest painting the end of the boards to prevent excessively fast drying, and splitting, of the ends.

If you want to try using this for ribs, cut the tree into quarters, and from these cut some boards to the length desired for your ribs. Cut, or split off individual pieces, paying attention to the grain pattern, and try bending them while the wood is still green. Heat and/or steam may still be neded to make the bending process work.

Hope this helps.

PGJ