American Chestnut?

bobbywett

bobbywett

Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
1,231
Hi Everyone,

My buddy owns a 200+ year old farm house. He said I can have all of the original American Chestnut beams to make knife handles. Is this a good choice for handles? Why? Why Not?....

Thanks for any info,

Bobby
 
You may want to stabilize it, but if it's structurally sound and reasonably hard, there's no reason I can see not to use it. If anything, it's just plain cool.

Personnaly, I'd be making some furniture from it. OR depending on how tight and straight the grain was, I'd even take it to a luthier and have a guitar top made from it.
 
Are these beams intact and not rotting or ate up? If not make a couple knives for him with that wood. Save the rest for some bigger projects. You will never find wood like that again. Trust me the walls in my current house is lighter rich pine from pre 1900.
 
The grain is like a coarse oak. As long as it's not rotten it would be fine , and unique too !
There are some houses here that are mostly chestnut . Old barns with chestnut are valuable as they command high price for the recycled wood , similar to southern yellow pine that's aged.
IIRC in PA 40% of hardwoods were chestnut before the blight hit .
 
I'm gonna head o er and pick up the wood tomorrow sometime. Hopefully before the hurricane arrives. I'll try and get more info on the age of the wood and possibly post some pictures too. Thanks for the suggestions folks.
 
Hey,
If you have enough to make furniture or bigger projects, you will have plenty of scrap for knife handles. One of my friends bought some recycled chestnut to make a kitchen table and he gave me lots of scrap for knife handles.
D Adams
John 3:16
 
Aged chestnut is really valuable if in good shape. I have paid $10/BF for wormy chestnut that was only in fair to good condition. A cabinetmaker or furniture maker will trade you a pile of Benjamin Franklin portraits for a hundred board feet of matching aged chestnut. You can buy a lot of equipment and top grade handle wood with that. I would research the possibilities before doing anything with it.
Another use for the beams is as ......beams........ in your den/living room/ work shop.
 
Any luck with the Chestnut so far, bobby? I'm curious to see how it turns out. I'm considering using stabilized American Chestnut for my personal user(s) myself. :)

For the record I have seen knives in AG Russell magazine handled in reclaimed American Chestnut. The wood looks great on a knife. It some times has the appearance of mammoth ivory. Here's an example I found online: http://www.droppointhunter.com/CanalStreetCutleryAmericanChestnutHandledDHolder
 
He ha a mess of the stuff, Adventure Sworn. I grabbed a 7 ft 4 x 4 with nice markings on it. I have yet to really play with it. I'll post pictures when I do.
 
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