Good morning, I realize this is rather spurious but I’ll give it a shot. First of all I live in Wyoming… we don’t have a lot of trees and the ones we do are pine or aspen especially where I live. You have to travel over 100 miles just to get to a big box store. Anyway I’m building a bar and want to do the face frames and doors in butternut. Butternut because I hope to try carving something in the doors. I have a friend going to Minnesota and he can pick me up 50 board ft of 8×4 and 50 bdft of 4×4 butternut for $6 a board ft. I read somewhere butternut was going to become extinct. This wood is sight unseen, rough cut, 5-6 inch widths, 4-6 ft lengths. Am I crazy or what. I will have to buy a planer. Someone told me the best way to learn how to buy would is to just jump in. I would at least not have to pay freight. Appreciate any thoughts on this.
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Replies
It is not going extinct here in Michigan (like the jobs are..) as it is fairly easy to get and a wonderful wood to work with but a little pricey. If you have never carved much you might not want to learn on $6/bf stock but get some aspen, is a great one to learn on (we have a lot of that in Michigan too we call it “pople”).
I've built many projects out of butternut. It is relatively soft, easy to work and real easy to carve. Try and find some that is slow grown (narrow growth rings), it tends not to fuzz as much as the fast grown stuff. When properly kiln dried, and finished, its pretty stable too.
Edited 11/25/2009 11:56 am ET by traveller2
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