British Walnut prices

[Sawdust=manglitter]

Just wanted to get an idea what kind of £/cu.ft people would expect to pay for 3/4" thick British Walnut it boards up to 16" wide?


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[Phil Pascoe]

I doubt you'll get 16" x 3/4" - it wouldn't be stable.

 

[Sawdust=manglitter]

I did wonder about the stability. I haven't seen it in the flesh, so the 15" wide may be a misprint!

Assuming it actually is approximatley 3/4" thick and is dry and appears stable (?) what would you expect to pay per cu.ft?

 

[custard]

American Black Walnut is normally around £80 a cu ft, European Walnut is far less common and has a wider price spread, a local timber yard that's taken down a local Walnut tree might sell it for £50-60, a specialist yard might ask £100-120 for premium quality European stock. I've heard a couple of yards recently saying the falling pound means ABW prices are on the rise, I've also heard some very canny folk say that the fashion for Black Walnut has peaked and is now in slow decline, which will tend to keep UK prices stable.

Incidentally I've bought waney edged ABW as 600-800mm heartwood wide boards, it's rarer than hen's teeth but it is out there. More commonly you'll get crown cut, sawn or planed ABW boards at 150-200mm wide.

Here are some 16" wide (heartwood width) English Walnut boards from my timber shed, if you can track down clean boards of English Walnut of this quality it's a joy to use

 

[Sawdust=manglitter]

Thanks Custard. I've got nowhere local that sells it so have nothing to compare it to. That atleast gives me an idea of what 'over the odds' would be!

 

[sneggysteve]

Wentwood Timber just outside Newport are showing on their site air dried Walnut at £45 / cu ft plus VAT

 

[Sawdust=manglitter]

Wentwood Timber just outside Newport are showing on their site air dried Walnut at £45 / cu ft plus VAT

Whenever I've been there's never been any Walnut available! Plus their guide cu.ft prices on the website should be taken with a pinch of salt. Also, inc. VAT and kiln dried would end up being £62.1/cu.ft. Thanks anyway Steve

 

[Racers]

I would kill for a 5 minute trolley dash in Custards wood store!

:wink:

Pete

 

[woodbrains]

Wentwood Timber just outside Newport are showing on their site air dried Walnut at £45 / cu ft plus VAT

Whenever I've been there's never been any Walnut available! Plus their guide cu.ft prices on the website should be taken with a pinch of salt. Also, inc. VAT and kiln dried would end up being £62.1/cu.ft. Thanks anyway Steve

Hello,

£62 a cube is very reasonable. If they have it buy it all!

Mike.

 

[Sawdust=manglitter]

If they ever had any, and at that price, then I'd be coming home with a car full! I'm sure they get the odd small batch, but never seen any there as it probably gets snapped up very quickly (and as it's a 1.5hr drive its not like i can 'pop in' often)

 

[delboy47]

Mon Timber Supplies who have now opened in Cardiff have ABW listed. Not English obviously but a port in a storm??

 

[Sawdust=manglitter]

Mon Timber Supplies who have now opened in Cardiff have ABW listed. Not English obviously but a port in a storm??

Thanks delboy.

Just had a look at their site... Wow... For 26mm thick its equivalent of £143/cu.ft including VAT (£5040/m3) :shock:

 

[delboy47]

Certainly not cheap by any stretch. We are not too well blessed regarding suppliers in these here parts are we. I have used their Newport depot a few times for various stock because there aren't many alternatives. I remember buying some beech a few years back and it seemed more expensive than other members were quoting for decent beech prices. There used to be a small supplier near Bridgend. Limited stock so very dependent on what he had in at the time. Got some beech from him but not sure if he is still there or does walnut.

 

[custard]

If they ever had any, and at that price, then I'd be coming home with a car full!

It's tempting, but often times English Walnut is marked down for a very good reason...it's generally full of shakes! I guess Yew has the highest wastage factor of any timber, but English Walnut isn't all that far behind, so it's not uncommon to find yourself with 200 or 300% wastage. Almost every furniture maker I know has a story about desperately trying to eke out some English Walnut boards to complete a commission, because no matter how generous you've been in buying you always seem to struggle to find quite enough clean timber.

Here's some more English Walnut from my timber store, you can see that two out of these three boards have shakes that would require a bit of head scratching to work around in order to get your cutting list out. And believe me these English Walnut boards are still way, way better than the average stuff. Treble or quadruple the number of shakes to get to the genuinely "average" board.

Compare this with American Black Walnut. Okay, it doesn't have that glorious subtle colouration and grain. And because it's steamed it looks a bit lifeless and flat. But on the plus side it's already been sorted before it was shipped so all the rubbish has been removed which means wastage might drop to 30 or 40%, it comes from bigger plantation grown trees so it's much more uniform, the steaming means you don't have as much of a clash between the sapwood and heartwood so finishing is far easier, and most significant of all for many woodworkers it's easily obtainable. I drive thousands of miles and spend many weeks each year tracking down the very best timbers, but you can buy American Black Walnut with just a phone call from any one of hundreds of outlets nationwide. Unless you're working with quite small projects I'd advise most people to forget about English or European Walnut and go straight to the far less complicated option of ABW.

 

[custard]

I would kill for a 5 minute trolley dash in Custards wood store!

And I'd kill for a 5 minute trolley dash in Pete's jam cupboard!

 

[Racers]

Swap you then custard!

:wink:

Pete

 

[twodoctors]

At Brooks Brothers (in Nottingham and elsewhere) a 21mm thick ones are £86 per sq metre.

Adrian

 

[MarkDennehy]

American Black Walnut is normally around £80 a cu ft,

Has the price gone up? We were paying €75 a cubic foot here last time I went to the timber yard.
I had heard shannon rogers saying that we'd be seeing a rise in the price and that was before the 30% tarrif between the US and Canada drove prices up again, but I didn't think it had kicked off yet.

 

[paul11]

I bought a 12ft of 5x2 last week of American Black Walnut that was bent and not a very consistent colour and that was £99.

 

[n0legs]

If they ever had any, and at that price, then I'd be coming home with a car full! I'm sure they get the odd small batch, but never seen any there as it probably gets snapped up very quickly (and as it's a 1.5hr drive its not like i can 'pop in' often)

I'm saying nuffin :-"