Working with Butternut

[petertay15]

Making a hall table, 14 x 30; good time to use an ancient butternut plank up in the rafters. I've not used butternut prior to now, so the surprise is that it is difficult to achieve a smooth surface. (Or is just this one plank?) Both the jointer and the planer scruff up the surface. Even tried misting with water as mentioned on another post. My solution on the rails and smaller pieces is to skim the surfaces on the TS. A sharp crosscut blade leaves a very nice surface. For the top and other larger pieces, I'll just have to sand a lot. Fortunately, butternut is soft enough to sand quickly.

[Scoony]

Never had a problem with it. Hand planning results in a silky smooth surface. It also sands really easy, which makes it easy to leave an uneven surface if your not careful.

[YSU65]

Scoony said:

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Never had a problem with it. Hand planning results in a silky smooth surface. It also sands really easy, which makes it easy to leave an uneven surface if your not careful.

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+1 I think it would look great for a hall table. Pretty soft of anything that takes abuse. Good luck....Tom

[Steve N]

Butternut is pretty soft and with a Janka hardness of just 490 it makes a lot of pine look like it's on steroids. Sharp tools/cutters/blades are a must, or like soft pine it will fur up on ya a bit. It's a go with the grain, rather than against it kinda wood.

Be patient and try different directions and sharp tools, once you get it going it really does shine up nice. I think it has more natural luster than Walnut, and I consider that a high sheen wood.

[packerguy®]

I had a similar issue.

I found a scraper with a fresh hook worked best.

[Anji12305]

It's commonly available around here, and rarely used for the reasons you've described. I can ONLY achieve a tear out free surface by scraping with heavy sanding.

I believe that while not all boards are created equal, most of them suffer tearout too readily to be considered as a primary wood.

I put in my store, hoping to make replacement kitchen cabinet doors from it - but it's so soft that rough handling leaves marks.

I've got kids in my house, so rough handling is a daily occurrence.

I consider this stuff good for toys, and little else.

[paulmaine]

Kiln dried butternut is harder than air dried. The Shakers produced some butternut furniture so it seems a viable furniture wood. Sharp planer and joiner blades should help.

[alnandy]

My experiences with butternut are pretty much the same as above. You need multiple coats of a hard finish for any wear surface. Built a corner cabinet for my daughter years ago and it's still hold up well.