Replies

1. 
   riverr1 | Oct 25, 2002 08:43pm | #1

   What kind of Chestnut?

   Don

1. 
   timberrattler | Oct 25, 2002 08:45pm | #2

   what do you mean

1. 
   riverr1 | Oct 25, 2002 10:39pm | #4

   Someone else may be able to answer this better, but American Chestnut is a fairly rare wood to come across because of some kind of blight from long ago, but still prevents trees from reaching a significant age or size. Horse chestnut is fairly common. I think there are others also. Mostly I ask because of the American Chestnut. Stan could probably give a better idea on how rare it is, and what the stuff would be worth.

   Don 

2. 
   fdampier5 | Oct 25, 2002 10:36pm | #3

   You are in the land of what am I bid......

       If you are a seller, name any price you'd like and if you wait long enough someone will pay it.     Want $50.00 a bd.ft.?  Sometime in the next century someone will be willin to pay it...  you may spend a lot of time and money looking for that person, it may be 30-40 years away but sooner or later someone will pay..

           On the other hand if you want to sell it now!  Go to a woodworking store near you and take what they give you...

      If  you are a buyer the same rules apply.

             Pay what the seller wants or find it elsewhere.

          I bought most of my black walnut for 17 cents a bd.ft.  however when I needed a couple of larger timbers this summer I paid $1.80  a bd.ft.

     My gut tells me that unless someone really has the hots for chestnut (which looks a lot like  white Oak to most people)  a few bucks  a board foot seems fair. Depends on the quality and quanity.

        If you go over to Fine Homebuilding site  and go to breaktime there is a lady who wants to build a chestnut floor, ask her what she would pay.....

3. 
   DaveHeinlein | Oct 26, 2002 01:50am | #5

   The last time I checked with Condon in Stormvile they were getting something like 6.00/bf. for RWL wormy . This was a couple years back.

1. 
   jonsherryl | Oct 26, 2002 04:11am | #6

   Dave, I think you're right. Depending on the quality of the stock, $4 to $6 per board foot is about what it's going for. I bought a little under 100BF several years ago and paid $4 per BF for it. Virtually all the genuine American chestnut on the market now is being cut from old barn beams and it's mostly wormy. There was a source in up-state New York that had an inventory of clear (unwormy) stock that had been cut before the blight, but they were marketing it back in the mid 1990s...so, I don't know if it's still available.

4. 
   timberrattler | Oct 28, 2002 05:22pm | #7

   thanks everyone for your input.  I paid $4.00 per bd ft for 5/4 8''x8' boards. I thought I got a steal iguess I just did ok. P.S. Anybody who thinks Chesnut looks like Oak should use only poplar and paint everything they build. 

1. 
   fdampier5 | Oct 28, 2002 07:37pm | #8

   Aw!  do I really have to paint all that black walnut and cherry?    

      Actually if you know woods you can tell the differance, but to the average person they look close enough to each other that they wouldn't know.