Walnut Rough Lumber — American Black Walnut, Priced per Board Foot
Starting at $12.85 per board foot — 4/4 rough sawn Walnut, priced live as you configure
Buy American Black Walnut lumber by the board foot. Kiln-dried Walnut in 4/4, 8/4, and 10/4. Rough sawn, S2S, or S4S. Any quantity, factory direct pricing.
Random-width, 8 ft rough sawn boards sized to the board feet you enter.
Estate Millwork buys American Black Walnut for our furniture-grade door and cabinet work. Buy that same kiln-dried Walnut by the board foot — select thickness and milling, enter the quantity you need, and add to cart.
Choose Rough Sawn for shop stock you'll mill yourself. Choose S4S for boards surfaced to 150-grit and ready to use. Choose S2S for face-surfaced material you'll joint yourself.
About Our Walnut
- American Black Walnut ( Juglans nigra ) — Appalachian and Midwestern stock
- Rich chocolate-brown heartwood that needs no stain, only a clear finish
- Janka hardness 1,010 — hard enough to wear well, soft enough to machine cleanly
- Kiln-dried to 6–8% moisture content; among the most dimensionally stable domestic hardwoods
- Sapwood is pale — expect some in wider boards; steamed stock is available on request
- Available 4/4 through 10/4 thickness
Walnut is our most requested species for interior doors and cabinet fronts where the wood itself is the finish.
What Builders Make from Walnut
- Furniture and casework — tables, cabinet fronts and interior doors that need no stain, only a clear finish
- Musical instruments — a prized tonewood for flute and woodwind bodies, guitar backs and sides, and drum shells
- Gunstocks — the traditional American stock wood: strong, stable and figured
- Turnings and carving — machines cleanly and holds fine detail
- Architectural millwork — stair parts, mouldings and mantels
Grade, Thickness and Board-Foot Pricing
Our Walnut is #1 Common and better, kiln-dried to 6–8%, and sold by the board foot — one board foot is 144 cubic inches (a 12×12×1″ board). We stock 4/4 through 10/4; thicker instrument and gunstock billets, extra-wide or figured boards, and truckload quantities are quoted on request through the form below.
Call 412.641.0177 with questions or custom quantity requests.
- Walnut Finished Boards — Cut to exact width and length, per piece
- Walnut Bulk — 500 BF minimum, LTL and truckload
- All Species Rough Lumber — 16 species available
- Red Oak Rough Lumber — Appalachian, priced per board foot
- Red Oak Lumber — Appalachian, #1 Common and better
- White Oak Lumber — Closed pore, rot-resistant, exterior grade
- Cherry Lumber — Appalachian Black Cherry, patinas with light
- Maple Lumber — Maple, Janka 1,450
- Mahogany Lumber — Genuine mahogany, stable and rot-resistant
- Sapele Lumber — African ribbon-stripe, Janka 1,410
- Teak Lumber — Plantation Teak, the marine standard
- Cypress Lumber — Southern Cypress, naturally rot-resistant
- Cedar Lumber — Spanish Cedar and Western Red Cedar
American Black Walnut at a Glance
The technical properties builders, woodworkers and specifiers ask about most, for American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra).
| Botanical name | Juglans nigra — family Juglandaceae, the walnut family |
|---|---|
| Also known as | American black walnut, black walnut, eastern black walnut, American walnut, Virginia walnut |
| Where it grows | Native to the eastern and central United States — the Appalachians and the Midwest — where it grows as a scattered forest tree rather than in dense stands; also planted in Europe |
| Average dried weight | ~38 lbs/ft³ (610 kg/m³) — medium |
| Specific gravity | 0.51 basic / 0.55 at 12% MC |
| Janka hardness | ~1,010 lbf (4,490 N) — medium-hard; hard enough to wear well, soft enough to machine and carve cleanly |
| Rot & insect resistance | Heartwood is moderately durable and resists decay, but it is not an exterior species — not recommended for ground contact or sustained outdoor exposure |
| Grain & texture | Usually straight, sometimes wavy or curly, with prized figure (crotch, burl, curl) near limbs and stumps; medium texture with a moderate natural luster |
| Color | Rich chocolate-brown heartwood with a purplish cast that mellows to a warmer honey-brown with light exposure; pale, near-white sapwood; needs no stain — the color is the wood's own |
| Machinability | Excellent by hand and machine; carves, turns and moulds cleanly, holds crisp detail and steam-bends well |
| Gluing & finishing | Glues, stains and finishes superbly and takes a high polish — one of the most rewarding domestic hardwoods to finish clear |
| Paintability | Accepts paint over primer, but is almost never painted — it is chosen precisely so its color and grain show |
| Stability | Good — moderate movement in service and dimensionally reliable once kiln-dried, which is why it holds up in wide furniture tops and cabinet panels |
| Sustainability | Not CITES-listed and not threatened; an abundant, well-managed North American hardwood |
The Story of American Black Walnut
American Black Walnut is Juglans nigra, a large deciduous tree of the walnut family (Juglandaceae) native to the eastern and central United States. It grows as a scattered specimen in mixed hardwood forests rather than in pure stands, reaching 70 to 100 feet with a tall, straight trunk and an open, spreading crown. It is the only native North American cabinet wood with a naturally deep brown heartwood — the wood every other domestic species is measured against for richness of color.
America's premier cabinet wood
Walnut has been the aristocrat of American hardwoods since colonial times. Its dark heartwood, easy working and dimensional reliability made it the wood of choice for the finest early American furniture, and its strength combined with the ability to absorb recoil made it the standard wood for rifle and shotgun stocks for well over a century. Demand ran so high in the early 1900s that mature walnut trees became genuinely valuable standing timber — a reputation the wood still carries today.
What it is made into today
Walnut remains the go-to species when the wood itself is meant to be the finish — the use we put it to most in our own shop, in interior doors and cabinet fronts. Beyond casework it goes into fine furniture, gunstocks, architectural millwork such as stair parts, mantels and mouldings, turnings and carvings, and musical instruments, where it is prized as a tonewood for guitar backs and sides, woodwind bodies and drum shells.
Working with it
At roughly 1,010 on the Janka scale walnut sits in the sweet spot for a shop wood: hard enough to wear well and hold crisp detail, soft enough to plane, carve, turn and machine with little effort. It glues, stains and finishes beautifully, takes a high polish and steam-bends well. The two things to plan for are the pale sapwood, which shows up in wider boards and is often steamed to blend it toward the heartwood color, and the fact that walnut is an interior wood — reach for white oak, teak or cypress when the job faces the weather.
American Black Walnut — Common Questions
How is Walnut lumber sold and priced?
What do people build with Walnut?
How hard is Walnut and is it easy to work?
Is Walnut suitable for exterior doors and outdoor work?
Does Walnut need to be stained to get its color?
Can it be painted?
How stable is Walnut — will it move or warp?
Why is there pale wood mixed in with the dark, and where does Walnut come from?
How does Walnut compare to Cherry?
Built to order in Walnut
The same Walnut we sell here go into our custom millwork
Estate Millwork mills this stock into finished, made-to-size doors, shutters, and cabinet doors — priced to your exact dimensions and shipped nationwide. Start with the product you need:
Custom Wood Doors From Our Hardwoods
The same kiln-dried stock on this page is what we mill into custom solid-wood doors — built to your exact opening, in any species. Browse by type:
- Interior Doors — solid-wood passage, closet and panel doors, any species
- Entry Doors — exterior-grade front and entry doors, built to the rough opening
- Louvered Doors — fixed or operable louver doors, cabinet height to full height
- Oak Doors — Red and White Oak, our most-ordered door species
- All Custom Doors — every style, priced live in the door designer
Custom & Bulk Quotes
Get a Custom Walnut Lumber Quote
Truckload bulk, surfaced (S2S / S4S) stock, extra-wide or figured boards, or a species that isn’t on the calculator — tell us what you need and we’ll price it, usually within 1–2 business days.
Prefer to talk it through? Call 412.641.0177.