Butternut Country style book case

[lou sansone]

good afternoon WWs
here is a little project that I just finished up. Thought some might to see a butternut piece. From what I have seen, the vast majority of butternut has some type of defect in it. It is part of the walnut family of woods, but lighter and softer than black walnut. Like walnut, it is an open grained wood and so this one was filled prior to finishing ( couple of coats of a wipe on finish and a little rubbing after filling an it is done )

Currently butternut is undergoing an nasty blight that is killing many of them, similar to the chestnut and the elm.


I would say that for country pieces it is right at home, but for high style federal you would not want to use it. This is a simple book case for my son who asked me to make one for him.


enjoy
Lou

[Calvin Hobbs]

Nice bookcase Lou. The butternut is interesting, it is a wood I have never worked with. Do you think if dyed it would look like walnut?

Did you dovetail the case together?

Cal

[Gary Breckenridge]

:cool: Nice family heirloom; I once built a butternut pie safe. The wood is a bit soft but it machines easily. The wood color and grain pattern is beautiful; why change it with stain or dye. Sadly it may be a wood on the way out like chestnut. Cherish it for what it is.:cool:

[Jim Becker]

Lovely, Lou! It's nice to see a butternut piece, too.

[Dan Oliphant]

I never seen butternut before (that I'm aware of) sure seems to have a very strong grain pattern.
Lou, the book case looks great too.

[Brett Baldwin]

Definitely a great wood for a "rustic" look. The wood looks so familiar and yet I can't think of a single thing I can recall being made of butternut. Nice piece Lou.

[John Fry]

Very Nice Lou,

The double beaded shelf fronts are a very nice touch.

[Richard Wolf]

Nice piece Lou. Very well done.
Next time throw a little saw dust on the floor so the rest of us don't get a complex.

Richard

[Alan Turner]

Nice country piece, Lou. I also like butternut. Wonderful to work with.

[Corey Hallagan]

Very nice, that would look great next to the hutch I made a long time ago. Great work!

Corey

[lou sansone]

good evening

a few folks wanted a little more info on the back of the cabinet, so here are a couple of photos that show the decorative ship lap back. the back is made of a series of resawn butternut planks 1/2" thick and about 7 inches wide.

enjoy
Lou

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Nice hutch...beautiful wood......excellent attention to detail Lou!

[Roy Wall]

Well done Lou!!

Did your son help with the construction?

[Gary Keedwell]

Bought a bunch of butternut about 10 years ago and it has followed me to 2 different homes. Finally made an Arts and Crafts picture frame to try it out. Machines nice and is very lightweight. LOML likes it very much. Just used dark wax only as a finish and came out great.

Gary K.

[lou sansone]

Nice bookcase Lou. The butternut is interesting, it is a wood I have never worked with. Do you think if dyed it would look like walnut?

Did you dovetail the case together?

Cal

Hi cal
No I did not on this piece. For highboys and tall case clocks I would, but for these case pieces I dont. It is probably a regional thing, but shelf pieces that I have seen ( 200 + years old ) are most always just nailed together. I used a combination of nails and dado and glue joints for most of the case. There are a few screws hidden though.

lou

[lou sansone]

Well done Lou!!

Did your son help with the construction?

Hi Roy

nope.... he lives on his own and is all grown up. Although he is a pretty good carpenter, he has not really shown interest in building furniture.

Lou

[Mike Leigh]

Being a newbie, and still trying to keep my butt joints square, I always wonder how all the great molding is attached to bookcases and etc. Could I ask someone to point to a tutorial or explain it?
Thanks much.

[lou sansone]

Being a newbie, and still trying to keep my butt joints square, I always wonder how all the great molding is attached to bookcases and etc. Could I ask someone to point to a tutorial or explain it?
Thanks much.

hi mike
glad you noticed this feature. I personally find putting together large moldings pretty challenging if they are not going to be painted. IMHO painted moldings are much more forgiving than natural wood molding joints ( please all you trim guys calm down !). On natural wood moldings, even a 1/32" of an inch starts to show up. Here is what seems to work best for me, and how I did the top molding here on this case

1. there are really 3 moldings built up into the final assembly
2. I joined the top 2 moldings together first and then chopped them oversize by about 1/2" ( the final cove molding is added once the cabinet is all trimmed out )
3. I like to try to position the side molding first in relation to the front one.
4. do the final trim on the first side molding and then tack it into place.
5. I often use a shorty piece to replace the front molding for the fit up on the other side piece.
6. fit up the other side piece ( I have scribed a line all the way around the cabinet ) to the front shorty piece and final trim and tack in place
7. keep trimming down the final front molding piece till it just fits and tack it into place

that is how I do it.

Lou

[Julio Navarro]

MIke, I tried to upload a pdf file that is a great resource from FWW but it wouldn't work. Send me an email address vie PM and I will send it to you.

[Scott Neblung]

There are very few pices made of butternut these days and it made my day to see this project.

Last fall I happened upon 150 bf of select butternut and snapped it up with the intention of using it for who knows what.

This project may be the inspiration I needed to revisit it.

Thanks so much for posting it.

Scott

[Martin Shupe]

Very nice, Lou, as usual. I have never tried butternut, but your piece inspires me to find some and try it.

Well done!

[Lori Kleinberg]

Very nice piece of furniture. Looks like great workmanship, too.
I have never seen butternut before. Thanks for posting.

[Julio Navarro]

beautiful book case Lou!!

[Mike Leigh]

Lou,

Thanks very much, saved your advice/instructions to a .doc file will use them as soooooon as I'm brave enough to try it.:o

Mike

[Rich Konopka]

Nice Job Lou !!! I see you put that pile of butternut to good use. How is the tick tock project coming along?

[lou sansone]

Nice Job Lou !!! I see you put that pile of butternut to good use. How is the tick tock project coming along?
Hi rich

I finished it a while ago and here is the link to the 18th century tall case clock
regards lou

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=38167