Chestnut for boat parts ?(pic)

[J. Dillon]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid85/pc06aa0828961005629181469de2fb4dd/fac361ec.jpg

Attended a talk about Chestnuts. As you can see this tree is highly resistant to decay. Has anyone used this wood for boat parts like cleats, blocks or whatever ?
Have the opportunity to collect dead fallen limbs or on the tree under supervision. Or am I wasting my time ?

JD with tree saw in hand

Sorry about picture quality it was pouring rain at the time.

[Wayne Jeffers]

JD,

American Chestnut is a beautiful, hard wood.

When I was young, an uncle who had retired from the coal mines in West Virginia took up woodworking. He went around salvaging old log structures (barns, etc.) and chestnut was his favorite. He sawed the logs into lumber and used the lumber to make some really beautiful furniture. That is what sparked my own interest in woodworking.

I understand that American chestnut compares well to white oak in harness/durability.

If you can find some, it should serve well for cleats, etc. But it must be finished bright! To do otherwise would surely anger the wooden boat gods. It's much too pretty to paint. ;)

Wayne

[Bob Smalser]

I grew up hearing lore about it plus our old barns and houses in Penna were full of it, so we got to use some recycled Chestnut occasionally, mostly for furniture panels. Easy to work.

More durable but significantly lighter than W. Oak, and also significantly less strong and less elastic when dry.

The book says it's 60pct the strength of W. Oak, so resize your scantlings accordingly for any structural members designed for oak.

[Jack Heinlen]

Jack,

My only experience is tearing into old timberframes in NE. Before the blight it was a favorite of timber framers. It's lighter than oak, mayber twenty percent, and it carves almost like mahogany, and has near the strength of w. oak. Plus it used to give wonderful nuts! smile.gif

As far as cutting up old limbs, I dunno. I had a chestnut mantel, salvaged from an old frame, that would have made fifty nice big cleats, but old limbs?

[Johannah]

The houses in our late Victorian neighbourhood have doors and mouldings of American Chestnut. It is a truly beautiful wood but very different from White Oak. The wood I have cut or refinished would have been from big trees though not necessarily "old growth". The most difficult characteristic of this wood for us has been the striking difference in hardness between the the growth rings. The difference in hardness reminds me of working with fir plywood faces. It's easy to mess up the surface with modern sanders. Careful work with scraper or plane or hand sanding should work fine. The wood is well worth the effort.

[Jack Heinlen]

Sixty percent the strength of W. Oak. I guess that doesn't suprise me. It really is lighter, by maybe more than twenty percent. Tearing into a frame, when we lifted the first piece, we could always tell if it was Chestnut. It looks--specially after 150 years--just like W. Oak if you give it a scrape, but man is it lighter.

All that at my beginning of looking. After awhile I expected Chestnut rather than oak.

It was a fine framing material, for all the reasons mentioned. The traditional NE timberframe is way overbuilt.

[imported_Steven Bauer]

There was an article in Woodenboat a few years ago about using chestnut for a transom and some other bits. Search the index.

Steven

[imported_Steven Bauer]

Oops... that article was about Elm. :(

Nevermind.

Steven