Walnut slabs: where we source, how we dry

Three suppliers we use for American black walnut slabs.

A sawmill in the Hunter Valley that imports green logs and slabs them locally. Best value if you can wait, their slabs are typically 18-24 months from green, sitting in their kiln-yard for the last 6-12 months. Pricing reflects this.

A Tasmanian importer who deals exclusively in pre-kiln-dried material from American suppliers. More expensive but the timber is ready to work as soon as it arrives. We use them when a job needs walnut on a tight timeline.

A small operator on the Central Coast who finds rural reclaim, older trees taken down on properties, sometimes 60-80 year old wood. These slabs are rare, expensive, but they have stability and figure that you can't get from new-cut timber.

The kiln logic: a freshly-cut slab takes about 10 days per inch of thickness to air-dry to 30% MC, then another 4-8 weeks in a dehumidification kiln to get to 10-12%. We don't run our own kiln (too expensive for our throughput) but we have arrangements with two kilns in the Hunter and on the Coast.

A five-year-old slab is worth twice a two-year-old slab because all the movement that the timber is going to do, it has done. The micro-cracking has happened, the stress has released, the moisture has stabilised. You can build a piece from a five-year-old slab and trust that what you ship is what the customer will own in twenty years.