A vastly underrated wood?

[Prometheus]

Hello all,

When I went to the local hardwood supplier this week to get a piece of butternut for my wife to use with her scroll saw, I had to do a double-take. I get contractor prices, but even so- the butternut was only $1.81/bf. For comparison, the 2/4 soft maple I grabbed at the same time was well over $2.50/bf.

Now, perhaps it's only a matter of personal taste, but I think butternut is a very attractive and easily worked hardwood. I just cannot figure out why on earth it would cost less than spruce!

Anyone able to fill in the gaps for me? Is there something nasty about butternut I'm not aware of, or is it just underrated? I would have thought maple would be the cheap stuff- it grows like a weed around here, but I've never seen a butternut tree in these parts.

[George]

You a northern or southern cheesehead? You'd pretty much have to be on big water in the north to find butternut. Not hardy enough.

FWIW, willow is a pretty nice wood, too. Smells when burned or wet, but has a mellow brown butternut look.

[Ba r r y]

I like it as well.

Here in CT, butternut is priced similar to red oak, at $3-$4 bd/ft.

Barry

[dadiOH]

Please send me 1000 bf.

-- dadiOH ____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06... ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at

[toller]

I love butternut. Around here (upstate NY) it is twice the price of oak, and hard to find. My usual lumberyard rarely has it; they say the sawmill has to readjust everything for it because it is so soft, so they won't run it.

The big problem with butternut is that it is soft and weak. It dents if you breath hard on it, and breaks pretty easy.

I just built a large buffet table. I used oak for all the internal work for extra strength; even making oak-butternut panels in a few cases where only the end of the panel would be visible. I used walnut in a few places where it couldn't be hidden, but needed extra strength. The contrast was very pretty, and I regretted not doing it more liberally; walnut drawer faces would have looked great, but I sold it and the customer liked the butternut fronts. Not much you can do about denting. (any suggestions?)

[Olebiker]

Seems like I recall seeing a lot of furniture built of butternut at the Shaker community of Pleasant Hill in Kentucky.

Dick Durbin

[Leon]

While being located near the area a wood is harvested can be beneficial, if the supplier can get it cheap the savings can be passed on to you. Ipe is a good example of a U.S. imported wood that is relatively cheap. I get it for pennies more than I pay for Oak.

[Norm Dresner]

Why is it "underrated"? Well, probably because it's not widely available. I've lived in MD and AZ and never seen it at a local lumber yard.

Norm

[no(SPAM)vasys]

The same here in Buffalo. 1C is running $3.85, clear is $4.60.

[Phisherman]

[Charlie Self]

I recently read somewhere that butternut has been declining, IIRC, from disease or insect damage(butternut is Juglans cinerea vs. black walnut, or Juglans nigra, which makes calling butternut white walnut more understandable).

[Prometheus]

Northern. I just find it amazing that it is so cheap!

Not too many of those around here either. Seems like all I can find are Maple, Oak, Paper Birch, various pines, and the odd Cherry or Boxwood tree. Sure, there are others, but they are cultivated timbers that people have in their yards.

[Prometheus]

Sounds like I'm just in luck around here- I guess it's the same case with other woods in other areas. I know I can't buy things like Mesquite or Osage Orange locally at any price. Butternut *is* soft, but softness is a relative term- I certainly wouldn't let anyone whack me over the head with it! I've never had it dent, either, but maybe I've just been lucky.

For the poster that asked for suggestions about the denting, I've heard that a moist rag laid over the dent and an iron will pop the dent back out.

[Prometheus]

Heh. That'd be quite a shipment! If you're ever coming near the north-central WI area, give ne a ping on the list, and I'll tell you where to get it.

[Prometheus]

That may be the answer to the low price right there... I know that MI has been cutting a lot of Ash to prevent the spread of the emerald ash borer, and the prices have gone down quite a bit as a result of a lot of it being on the market. I hadn't heard anything about butternut, though. I guess I'll be stocking up, just in case!

[Australopithecus scobis]

How could you tell? The pine was easy to spot. I thought the hardwood was maple. How does one identify butternut through that brown stain? (Just to avoid misunderstanding: I'm not criticizing your identification; I'm asking how you made it.)

[Hax Planx]

It has a hardness rating lower than yellow poplar, and only beating out basswood and aspen on my spreadsheet of 40+ hardwoods and their properties. I agree it is really nice looking though.

[Olebiker]

The docent pointed out that the Shakers used it a lot. I recall it because I was so unfamilar with it. It's been several years since I was there, but I don't remember any brown stain on it.

[Australopithecus scobis]

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:52:04 -0700, Olebiker wrote: [re Pleasant Hill]

I have photos... I was going to post on apbw but I botched the photography... Anyhow, to refresh your memory, the built-in cabinets had a brown stain. The movables had a reddish stain or the brown stain. Some pieces, like the cobbler's bench, appeared grubby--couldn't tell the original color.

As an aside, as I look at one of the better photos of a built-in drawer, it appears that the face was stained before assembly. The pins are darker than the tails and the rest of the drawer side.

[Richard Clements]

to have that kind of hard wood everywhere, I HATE YOU!!!!! it's all pine here, if I want real hard wood I have to go chop down someones tree, thats where I got some cherry, maple and Willow last week. as far as buying the cheepest hardwood is popular at $2.50BF, alder was cheep but is now in the $4-$5+ same with soft maple and oak

I understand there is mountain mahogany in the Owaheeys a few hours south of here but I just haven't gotten then urge to go look for some, all I need is a $7/cord BLM lumber permit and some time to look