Butternut

[SW_IOWA_SAWYER]

I am trying to find some thick butternut cants. I woodcarve and love to carve butternut. I am looking for some 4" thick stuff 6" wide or wider and 8' long cants. I am hoping for pretty clear stuff but some woodworm holes are Ok too. My old source has dried up due to the economy. I am in Iowa so butternut is not a local tree here (Walnut yeah but that is kind of hard to carve). If you guys can help me or maybe point me in the right direction that would be great.

Thanks

George

[tjdub]

Are you sure the source dried up due to the economy and it's not just the butternut going extinct due to canker?

It's been pretty sad to see a tree species disappear in my lifetime. We used to have some monster butternuts where I live, but now there are only a few young and very sick trees still standing.  I don't know any that are even healthy enough to produce a nut anymore.

[SwampDonkey]

Still a few here in the river valley and some ridge lines , streams and gullies within 4 miles of the river. The ridge out behind here has quite a few. And I've been planting as many of the nuts as I can scrounge in various places from the back yard to the woodlot.  ;D Most of the easy to get to stuff usually gets logged off, so not many mature ones left in some places. Some folks don't want any cut because nut trees of any kind are not all that plentiful up this way, except maybe beech and that's dying off to. It's becoming an understory tree for the most part. Then there are others that have no clue, butternut is a word they have heard, but wouldn't know one if it bit them. Hasn't been much nut production for 3 years here. If the hazel nuts aren't producing, of which there are billions, than I don't look for butternuts.

[northwoods1]

I've got two 4" x 6" x 8' long pieces out in my lumber shed that I would part with. I run across it occasionally in the woods here.

[Ironwood]

I just dropped a BIG one. Yard tree w/ lots of BIG branches low. Butt log was bad in the center. 

I am looking for some carvers to take it. .

I think there are some pics in my camera, I will look.

Ironwood

[indiaxman1]

Butternuts have been declining in In. for 30 yrs..I planted some in the 80's..they all died off as saplings.....it is one of the most beautiful veneers...if ever in Chicago, check out the Mercantile Exchange in the loop...walls of butternut.....sad to see another species dying off