Butternut lumber

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Ken McKay

Nice looking stuff there Craig.

Specific gravity can be measured by taking a small or large piece of your lumber. A cut off is probably best and make sure it is equal in dimensions along the length. I need not be square, but if wedge shaped, it should be the same all the way from end to end. For example cut off a 4 inch end piece about 1 inch wide. 1x1x4 for example. Dip it it water and it will make a water mark, now dip the other end and mark that line. Take the average of the two measurements and divide by total length to get Specific Gravity.

If you saved any cut offs from your last bass, measure them also and compare the butternut.

Let us know.

Butternut aka white walnut (juglans cinera) S.G. is .45
American/Black Walnut (juglans nigra)averages at .64

American Mahogany is .54-.64
African mah. (different species) is .54-.59
Red maple/soft is .63
Sugar maple/hard is .72
European maple is .66-.69

These are published at about 12% moisture content. You will be working with 6-10% on average but the differences between species stay fairly constant.

To me S.G. is not important in itself. It is only one kind of measurement. Lighter woods can be more stable than harder woods. Depending... No rules here for hard vs. soft. Each species has its own properties. Read some books if you want to go deeper.

In my business I use lbs/bdft.(sq. ft. at 1" thickness.) I did this be measuring about 5-10 pieces of various sizes per species and weighing them and then averaging them out. The wood I have here is 6-8% m.c. as we use it and I used NO books in the process. Only the wood, a scale, a calculator, ruler, tape measure and caliper.
http://www.kensmithbasses.com/woodpa...econtents.html

Butternut is soft. I was once offered some and refused it. I just didn't need another 'blase' species to mess around with. It is not that popular and for a good reason. It is soft and not all that attractive as far as comparing to other hardwoods. It should be cheaper than most woods but commercially I don't see it offered all that much.