I love black walnut (Juglans nigra), but walnut does not love us.
Sure, we all know that walnut is bad for horses – stables will not accept the shavings for bedding. Plus, walnut sawdust is not so good for mulch or bedding for plants.
It can be used with malice. I know a furniture maker who makes cooking spoons with walnut for customers – a gift! – who have been extreme pains in his tukus. Walnut can have laxative properties when it comes in contact with food.
Me, I dislike walnut from the inside. My insides.
Some time during the summer I got some nasty walnut splinters in my left hand. I don’t remember the trauma, but the surgeon had the proof. The walnut got under my skin and a bunch of scar tissue formed around the fragments.
A hand surgeon took out the splinters and scar tissue on Wednesday. Now I have to learn to cut dovetails with a massive splint and bandage around my finger. Stupid walnut.
— Christopher Schwarz
That’ll teach you to give it the middle finger.
Hi Chris,
Hope you heal up quickly. Down here in the southwest we have some native trees that can do some nasty things to you if you get it inside you (dust or splinters). Mesquite and juniper are two woods I use for rustic furniture. I tend to wear gloves whenever I have to handle trees or rough cut wood. At the end of the day I take time to check for splinters anytime I’m using them in a project otherwise I pay for it. I have a stack of walnut in my shop that is destined for a desk later this year. Thanks for the heads up. I will be extra careful handling it.
just be thankful that you didn’t eat it!
BTW – Handplane Essential arrived today – Love it
Michael
Chris “Nipples of Steel” Schwarz done in by a walnut splinter? Say it ain’t so!
Good thing you got it out before it made its way to your heart and you turned into a Nazgûl.
-Steve
“…turned into a Nazgûl.” Sweet reference. 🙂
Jonathan
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European Walnut, no problem. Black Walnut; nose bleed and a sore throat for three days. Not to self, don’t stick finger in nose while working….
Chris, with a finger strapped like that, careful when you’re driving!
cheers,
Gav.
I get contact dermatitis when I turn green black walnut. Customers demand walnut bowls, so even in summer I wear long sleeves, gloves, respirator, long pants and an attitude when I work it. Oh, right, that last one does not help a bit…
I love black walnut, except that I have to wear a respirator every second I am working it. Heal quick Chris!!
Many woods are irritating or cause allergic reactions. While working as an urban forestry technician the crew did not like to cut London Planetree The dust is extremely irritating to the respiratory track. I took a group of citizen pruners out to trim up trees so cars could park within an hour we were all coughing. The smaller the particles or the greener the wood the more danger.
That’s interesting – I had a Planetree in he garden of my last house that got too large for it’s site. A mate and I dismantled it, he had most of it for his woodburning stove, and neither of us had any respitory or skin problems at all. (We didn’t use a chipper or shredder on the small stuff, though, or a chainsaw.)
My two cents… I’ve worked a good bit of black walnut, and never noticed any particular responses to dust or splinters (at least, not worse than any other dust or splinters…) I do have dust allergies, and I don’t like splinters, but in both cases walnut seems about average. In fact, I really like the smell of freshly-cut walnut!
Also, my in-laws use walnut stirring sticks/spoons for various food prep tasks, and we’ve never noticed any “gastrointestinal distress” resulting from food that has come in contact with walnut.
Just noting that this varies not only by the woodworker (or food eater), but also possibly by the individual walnut tree?
Twice in the same week, I got walnut splinters jammed underneath my fingernails and had to dig them out with a knife and a tweezers. Hurt like a you know what, but now I am glad that I got it out.
I’ll definitely keep that in mind when I get around to planing and sawing the walnut quarters I have saved from my grandfather’s walnut tree. I don’t want any of those unfortunate experiences as a result from working it into a special project!
Southern wisdom from my Dad: “It’ll feel better when it quits hurtin’.”
Thanks, Dad.
Chris, I hope you heal soon. I had a broken finger this summer and had to continue installing cabinets and finish a few woodworking projects aswell. I feel for you and remember it will slow you down, but it will not stop you.
regards Richard
Please….you could cut A+ dove tails holding the saw in your teeth.
Now be quiet ya little baby, and get to work!
Walnut sawdust is great for getting rid of crickets. Spread a little dust around the house and doorways. They will probably never come back but you can always spread a little more sawdust.
That is nuts. A cautionary tale indeed.
Splinters actually.
The nuts are actually quite tasty.
(I had to)
I’m not a fan of walnut. I was told that the roots give off a toxin that prevents other plants from growing around them. The husks on the nuts smelled horrible when I’d mow around the trees.
On the other hand, I recently built a stair rail from hickory and the whole house smelled good. Like a comfort smell. Like applesauce.
It’s amazing that our olfactory system can distinguish good from bad.
I have a friend gather all the walnuts – make sure you weare gloves or your hands will be stained for days. Then I put them in a 5 gall bucket and let them rot down (you can speed up the process if you like by mashing them. The gunk in the bottom gets filterd and you have the ultimate in Walnut stain. BYW the way – very little will grow under Walnut but we have Clematis and ferns hapily growing under ours.
Walnut is bad, but plastic is worse! Several years ago I had sore on my elbow that would not heal. After a few months, a little bit stuck out and I pulled out a 1″ long sliver of Formica ™ with all sorts of gruesome tissue attached. You could still see the color and pattern on the top surface of the sliver, so I know for sure where I got that one!
What you need now is a walnut laxative campaign fork kit!
“Walnut Laxative Campaign Fork”
Sounds like a good name for a rock band.
Woodwind ensemble, surely?
Thanks for the laxative tip. I may start prescribing a walnut diet for some of my cranky old constipated patients!
As a matter of potential interest, redwood splinters are vicious. The body’s reaction to that particular foreign matter makes one wonder about contamination from plague rats.
I have had a similar experience with walnut, although my longest-resident splinter was white pine – which took seven weeks to traverse a finger from one side to the other.