butter

woodybutcher · January 11, 2020, 08:39:04 AM

Has anybody out there ever worked with butternut before? I am currently building a project in my shop for a customer out of a tree that I sawed for him 2 years ago. This will be the first project that I have taken from log to finished project with my sawmill, so kind of excited to finish and chalk up another first. It will be an heirloom piece as the tree was the only one in the woods and the property has been in the family for several generations. I am honored to be part of this build for that reason. But I digress, anybody have any experience with butternut? say_whatp.s. I will try to post pics if I can figure out how to mate phone to laptop.

Don P · January 11, 2020, 08:56:17 AM

I've sawn it a couple of times, nice stuff, pics in "sawing pics" in my gallery. @SwampDonkey has some good pics of nice pieces of furniture he has made with it in his gallery.

SwampDonkey · January 11, 2020, 09:29:45 AM

There is also a member on here who saws and has a video on sawing butternut.

IN ALL MY YEARS OF SAW-MILLING I HAVE NEVER SEEN A LOG LIKE THIS BEFORE, PRIZE BUTTERNUT! - YouTube

curved-wood · January 11, 2020, 10:02:56 AM

I do stuff with butternut since it the prefer wood of my wife. It is very soft to the point that I have to careful in finishing; the belt sander will gouge in it very easily. I have a couple of sculptors that like it very much. It is wood that respond well to woodburning. Good size logs are more difficult to find. Last we wanted to buy enough for the doors and trims of my son's house with not much success. The few loggers around said the butternut is sick and dying around here. Half of the last logs were infested with tiny insect holes difficult to see on the bark. Still I was able to saw a couple of nice 4''x12'' clear and no pit.

woodybutcher · January 11, 2020, 10:11:34 AM

Yes very tender and susceptible to dents and scratches. Any differences or insights on finishing?

kantuckid · January 14, 2020, 01:08:42 PM

I'd throw some Watco danish on it like I do walnut, then wax or a poly wipe Watco if it's gonna be used for a table top, etc that gets wiped down food spills etc.. The trees are very uncommon here and called "white walnut" locally. The disease has been around quite some time now.
I like the nuts OK but not as well as walnuts or pecans.
Honestly I prefer walnut wood but that's not to say Butternut's not beautiful.

SwampDonkey · January 14, 2020, 01:38:43 PM

I'd say in my area around the farm, we have not seen it before Hurricane Arthur. Now most any mature one is in a sad state with epicormic branching on dying limbs. It was seen further south of here for a few years, but Arthur moved it further along.

69bronco · January 15, 2020, 07:06:17 AM

I made a rocking chair out of it, 35-40 years ago. As far as I know it's still going strong. I did laminate some ash to the bottom of the rockers for wear. Used an oil/beeswax finish. Poor man's walnut ;D

petefrom bearswamp · January 15, 2020, 08:49:21 AM

The only thing I have made with it was a small jewelry box.
I just finished making about 400' of random width t&g paneling for a customer.
Some wormy which she just loves.
It is going on the ceiling so denting and scratching shouldn't be a problem

kantuckid · January 16, 2020, 09:12:53 AM

The tree is mostly uncommon below the Ohio River now and before the issues.
A few years ago I took a look on CL and found a guy selling butternuts from a yard tree near Morehead, KY. I bought some, cracked and froze them on a whim. Honestly I prefer black walnuts for candy or pecans.

SwampDonkey · January 16, 2020, 01:45:29 PM

Butternuts are good in home made fudge, but a bugger to get the meats out. We dried them, never roasted them, before cracking. Spread out on newspaper in the attic.

I've planted a lot of butternut and seeds to. Between here, Saulte St Marie, On and northern Mi. ;D :D You aren't even allowed to touch'm in Ontario. Worst than kick'n the neighbour's dog. ;) I'm in New Brunswick here, we don't try to stop what can't be stopped. I remember a bunch of paperwork we got from a mill about working on their land or crown land. They said no touch in the paperwork. They must have forgot to tell the loggers on the lot we was thinning with brush saws because they had cut the mature ones all down. But there was probably more that came back from seed then there was cut. It grew up all through plantation and aspen suckered ground. We thinned through it all with brush saws. We left lots of butternut trees. ;)

There's a weevil eating all the flower buds in butternut around here in recent years. They winter in the ground as larva. Never had them things before when I was a kid. There was a day you couldn't begin to pick all the nuts under just one mature tree that was open grown.

kantuckid · January 17, 2020, 01:02:39 PM

Hickory nuts are the king of nuts at playing hard to get!
Hard shell and coming up with a "half of a half" is about as big as ya get.
Tasty in baked items like cookies! My black walnut cracker with a rack gear does both nuts but still a PITA. Plus the squirrels get dibs on them.

Don P · January 17, 2020, 01:13:47 PM

Can you post a pic of your black walnut cracker?

kantuckid · January 18, 2020, 12:42:55 PM

Just google this- "Duke's Black Walnut Cracker" and you'll see several sellers come up.
There's another style sold that's got a steel lever called a "Kenkel Black Walnut Cracker-it pricey. It could be fabricated up in a home shop easily.
With mine any Grandma can easily crack a black walnut at the kitchen table.
I loan it to my neighbor who has 3 huge walnut trees in his yard where he mows, so he's picking them up for nuts my way. At the walnut wholesale place here they bring 15 cents a # delivered to their place then they hull them. The shells are worth more than the nutmeats!
KC, MO walnut company gets them all.
You won't get lots of halves but it does give much larger pieces than a vise or a hammer. Also easy to do hickory nuts.
Pecans- I began using the rocket style lever crackers but last year and this I began using the "Texas Inertia Pecan Cracker" which uses rubberbands to pop them. Most all come out as a complete nut then you pull the halves apart.
For the record, it's nasty here! so I'm busy cracking my 50 pounds of AL pecans lately. Now got left maybe a yield of 5-6 more freezer qts. Not the best I've had but OK for the $2 # I paid. Obviously these are not irrigated nuts but are Stuarts so flavors good.
Walnuts we use way less so only every year or so on them.

Don P · January 18, 2020, 03:44:18 PM

That's a neat looking cracker, it would probably work better than my hammer and a chunk of iron I found by an old furnace. I worked in a job shop in my late teens that got a contract to make a million of the Texas inertia nutcrackers, that was a long boring run :D.

SwampDonkey · January 18, 2020, 04:52:08 PM

I had a couple black walnut here since 1992 and they produced a lot of nuts. But they were not frost hardy trees this far north and the nuts were small and non ever germinated. I cut'm down for first winter fire wood in the new house. Made heat anyway. ;D

SwampDonkey · January 18, 2020, 04:57:05 PM

Some claim it (Duke's) is a knockoff of the Master Cracker (made is USA), manufactured by Mr. Gerald Gardner of Sarcoxie, Missouri.

The Kenkel Black Walnut Cracker is cheaper at the maker's ($53) than Amazon.com ($132.00)