" him " donteth knoweth everything.

He's just old and grumpy. We all get that way. Im pretty much a reclusive grump wanting to kick everyone out of the shop (that doesnt have a pocket full of cash). Is what it is.

Hard to find people with a sense of humor here. When I tell a joke from now on, I'll label it so you don't have to come on and attack me. It's not like you have a lot to weed through on this site to see new content! LOL

Doing more research. I find no prime listed in the NHLA grading book for walnut. So far it only appears with private companies. Does that make it an acceptable grade if only used to sell something at a higher price since there is not official rules?
This is not a joke, asking questions only.

Sorry guys, its listed as PREMIUM walnut on my invoices. I just always ask for prime. Yea walnut has always been very difficult but this batch not as good as usual. Very picky customer means i get a stack of free walnut lumber. Not going to try to return it because i dont want my supplier unhappy with me. Most people dont care if the back of their doors has sapwood. Thing is they are staining all these doors near black but still request perfect material. Go figure. Couple stiles were perfect except for bullets. My other supplier was $2 more per BF. I am finding big differences in pricing on hardwoods between suppliers where they always used to be really close.

Always a challenge to understand some customer requests. But in this case don't worry about the price. Just mark up the material at your regular rate and let the customer pay for their desires.

I'd say you didnt do too awful bad considering my experience. Just rounding up and using 4/4 as an example, 3" x 84" x 26pcs hits at 45.5BF and pulling dead clear from 170BF lands you at about 40% which is much better than our yield for dead clear/straight material. The bummer in my world is we only have the option to buy pack sizes so depending on what our mill has on-hand we may have to buy several hundred board feet just to get a pack in-house and even then its a roll of the dice and you may have to grade through that entire pack to get pristine boards. The next pack may be gold bars but its just a roll of the dice.

I just finished a walnut cabinet project. I ask my supplier for the most expensive material they had. All in all it was good. The boards with knots I filled with epoxy and made the panels out of them. Customer was very happy. I did pay about $12.00 per board foot for the material.

For panels, you don't need high grades. The short cuttings can come from #1 common if the customer doesn't mind some sapwood on the back side.

This might help.

https://www.mcilvain.com/news/walnut-grades-explained/