Broken black walnut

Hello everyone! I came across this busted old black walnut tree and am wondering what would be some good uses for it. It should be quite dry as its been like this for several years and isnt touching the ground much. None of it is very large in diameter, so any lumber would be maybe 6-8” in width at the most, although I do know a couple people with mills that could cut it for me. Ive gotten into spoon carving a bit and am considering trying to use some of it for that, but this is a lot of wood for spoon making. I also dont know if it would be hard as a rock to carve since it’s dry and if black walnut wood would even be a good choice for food utensils. I also heat with wood, so if nothing else I could burn it, but I read its not great firewood either.

Any suggestions?

I know lathe guys buy walnut for bowls, but I'm not sure what the size needs to be for it to be useful.

If you had a good size section of trunk, I'd say mill it and do something with the wood. Black Walnut is pretty forgiving on the drying end and even standing dead wood could still look nice. Being on the smaller side... Maybe salvage the bigger straight pieces for poles but that's about it in my mind.  

Timothy Norton wrote:If you had a good size section of trunk, I'd say mill it and do something with the wood. Black Walnut is pretty forgiving on the drying end and even standing dead wood could still look nice. Being on the smaller side... Maybe salvage the bigger straight pieces for poles but that's about it in my mind.  

I have a whitetail european mount on a piece of black walnut and really like the dark wood to white bone color contrast. I suppose even if the millable stuff is only 8” wide that still might be enough to make a bunch of those.

Or even maybe 4-6” stuff could be cut into strips and made into cutting boards right? Never done that but it seems like it would work

Black walnut is one of my favorite woods to carve into. Takes exceptional detail and though hard not as hard as other woods out there. It would make fine kitchen utensil material.

Robert Ray wrote:Black walnut is one of my favorite woods to carve into. Takes exceptional detail and though hard not as hard as other woods out there. It would make fine kitchen utensil material.

Is it a struggle to carve it when its already dry? Im very new to spoon making and have cheap tools, but a variety of them and they are sharp. The wood wouldnt leach anything toxic into food?

I also need to make a wooden packing tool for when I pack sauerkraut into jars. Think black walnut wood leach anything detrimental into the kraut, or being dry and waxed would it be safe?