Newbie sawing cherry

[HighlandLanding]

Hello All, I am new to bandsaw milling (I've dabbled in chainsaw milling).  Just got a used LT15 wide.  I have a number of nice, and some crooked, wild cherry trees in the Catskill Mtns of NY (about 18-22" diameter). 
What I'm wondering is:

1. Whats the current market for cherry.  I'd like to saw these and properly sticker them, and maybe sell a board or two. 
2. I know about the flaws of sapwood in cherry, but there seems to be a market for live edge slabs, so I thought I should maybe slab up some of the logs.  If so what thickness; 8/4, 10/4? What thickness should I make the non-live edge boards (I'm thinking 4/4)
3. I know a bit about the flaws of the pith. Anything else I should know about cherry?
4. Does my potential saw plan below look okay.  I could of course cut more or less slabs.  
I appreciate any and all feedback!
Thanks,
Adam

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[WV Sawmiller]

   Don't dismiss those crooked logs/trees out of hand. When I see a crooked log I immediately think of live edge slab benches.


 
These were so off center I had to add a 5th leg in the center at the back of the curve. A customer bought them to put around a fire pit. They would also fit well around a shade tree facing outward.


 
Cut on both sides of the curve and saw parallel to it like a boomerang. When you put 2-3 of the benches together they make a circle. Or would be great to put in a corner somewhere.

  These are easy to make on your mill once you buy a tenon cutter and have a good heavy duty drill or lathe to use it on. Good luck.


 
Cherry makes a pretty bench.
 

 


 

[moodnacreek]

When walnut is hot cherry is not. Cherry is a nice hardwood to saw, other than typical hardwood springing . Stain is not an issue and it well air dry quite well. It also stores well. Like  most logs you taper to center the heart, take a slab [a real slab] and a board or 2 and turn 180 and do it again. You band saw guys drive me nuts saying slabs and pith. I used to read everything i could get about sawmilling and log and lumber grade etc. and never heard these terms.

[Southside]

How about some jacket boards  :D?

[cutterboy]

Adam, any cherry boards (4/4) I put up for sale sell quickly.

[Resonator]

All of the black cherry I've sawn I've been able to sell. And as said it air dries well. My customers look for good color, and pick out boards with wave (curl) in the grain. I edge as much sapwood as practical (sapwood is "junk"), and cut to 4/4. You can cut to 5/4 to have more thickness to plane flat after drying, but you will get fewer boards yielded from the logs.

Slabs work best to seal the ends to minimize checking, I also cut to 8' 4" (or longer) to be able to trim to a 8' finish piece.
Regardless of the type of wood, I cut my own slabs to sell to 2 1/4". Though I did cut a cherry log a customer brought to 6" for a fireplace mantle.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I keep a stock of 3" thick cherry mantels too. I had a pair of curved front mantels out of cherry. I put the outer curved down on the mill and adjusted the height on each end to edge both ends equally and when finished they curved from about 7" wide at the ends to 12" in the middle with the back squared off to fit against the wall. The same customer had two fireplaces and bought them both.

[jpassardi]

When you cut the logs, get end sealer on them ASAP. Cherry is about the worse for end checking.

[Old Greenhorn]

Like many questions asked here, the answer is really: 'It depends'.
In this case, it depends on what you are doig with the lumber. For furniture making and such, most folks won't want to pay for sapwood. If you are making rustic benches and such, I leave it on, and yes, those curved ones can make some nice stuff.



 

On those benches I only removed the bark and cambium layers, everything else was just sanded in and finished with tung oil finish. They command a good price because of the overall appearance and the joinery involved.

 BTW, wondering where you are in the Catskills? I am in West Hurley, about 10 minutes west of Kingston.

[Wattwood]

Your sketch doesn't account for the pith check that will likely be in the logs to some degree and foul up some your slabs or your 4/4 boards nearer the pith. If you mill parallel to the check for your 4/4 boards rather than perpendicular you could try to get some quarter sawn boards and they would be wider. Might be more successful on some logs than others.

Here are examples of logs with a strong pith check and one without:


 


 

Note the red rot in both photos. That's something to be avoided...

Weight the devil out of the stack. Rob

[bluegrasspicker]

Hi Wattwood,

You said to "note the red dot in both photos."

It's killing me.  I can't find a red dot in either photo.  I've been looking so hard that my eyes are bulging out of my head.  Could you explain what you meant?

Thanks,
Bob

[Wattwood]

I was referring to the zones of red rot that show up in the ends and continues up into these logs. At best it is a discoloration of the wood, at worst it makes the wood punky. It will happen in logs that have been dead for a while or have some sort of core deterioration. 

[bluegrasspicker]

Thanks for taking the time to explain that.  I had misread "dot" instead of "rot," so new am I to this game.  

But I wouldn't have known that I'm looking at red rot.  I looked it up and found several more examples, many more extreme than on your log. 

I appreciate the new knowledge, thank you!

[HighlandLanding]

I appreciate all the responses and input! 

Any particular sizes that sell well/are more stable for cherry. Length, width, thickness?

[terrifictimbersllc]

Hi Wattwood,

You said to "note the red dot in both photos."

It's killing me.  I can't find a red dot in either photo.  I've been looking so hard that my eyes are bulging out of my head.  Could you explain what you meant?

Thanks,
Bob

Hold your cat up to the screen, he can probably find the red dot.

[chickenchaser]

  Don't dismiss those crooked logs/trees out of hand. When I see a crooked log I immediately think of live edge slab benches.

WV
Thank you!
I'm not very blessed with decent cherry around home. Some fence row barbed wire eaters and a few smallish ones along the wood line growing out at a near 45 degree angle. 
I think you gave me a hint...
CC

[Magicman]

Notice that all Cherry logs have a pith check.  If you are wanting the widest boards possible...


 
Be sure to turn your logs so that the pith check will be horizontal during your saw through.


 
Such as this.  As you are opening faces, be sure to measure from the sawmill bed to the pith check and raise one end to insure that the fewest boards are affected.


 Notice that the pith check disappeared within two boards.


 
The pith check went from the butt to the top end and only affected one side of two boards.

The customer here only wanted the widest boards possible.

[Brad_bb]

An equally important question is what are you going to do with the boards once sawn?  Do you have stickers prepared?  How do you plan to stack and do you plan to put enough weight on the stack?  Where and how will you store them to air dry?  

The first logs I sawed I was focused on sawing the logs and NOT on being prepared for properly stacking and stickering.  I cut the first ones too thin, left a bunch live edge, didn't put weight on them...ended up with a lot of loss.

I cut 4/4 1-1/6" thick.  5/4 1-3/8".  But you need to stack and weight your stack to minimize warpage, otherwise you might not have enough material to finish where you want.  For example, most of the time my 4/4 will finish at 7/8" but not always.  For slabs I often find I want to finish at 2" so that means I need to rough cut at 9/4(2-3/8").  I'm usually cutting Ash, Walnut, or Cherry.  With some woods you may want to add some thickness to be sure they'll clean up where you want them.  If Cherry has any sapwood or knots, it wants to warp more.  Higher grade wood will dry flatter.  Lower grade wood wants to more more, generally.  It's the changing grain direction from defects that cause it to pull in different directions.  Sapwood shrinks more and faster than heartwood in Cherry, to it wants to pull a lot if you leave it.  

[Ianab]

The "Avoid the heart check" and "weigh down the stack" advice goes for most "fruit woods". But with any log, the pith area is usually trouble. In the cherry shown there is a serious crack starting from the pith and extending out through most of the log. Nothing you can so about that, except avoid it as much as possible.  If it only messes up 2 boards, you have done it right. 


With heart rot the first signs are discolouration. If it's minor and the wood is still sound,  carry on. As the decay progresses the wood starts to get "punky" and weakened. You can see this by the way it saws, or poke it with your pocket knife. It's never going to dry into a sound board.


Later stages of decay has the centre obviously rotted, and maybe carried away by ants to leave a hollow log. If the tree isn't harvested, it's then a home for various critters, until it naturally falls over and gets replaced by a new tree. 

The reject cracked boards can still be chopped up and used a "smoking wood".

[YellowHammer]

Here's how I do it.

#1 Way to Increase Sawmill Lumber Quality - Professional Shows How to Sawmill Cherry - HHA - YouTube

[Magicman]

As YH demonstrated above, sawing techniques depend upon the customer's cut list.  In his instance, he is the customer and he is producing a maximum volume of high quality lumber of various widths for sale.

In my pictures above, the customer wanted the maximum volume of 12" wide lumber and did not want anything narrower.  All of his lumber was to be used for wall paneling so pith irregularities were of no concern.  If I had not turned the log and sawed horizontal to the pith check, every board would have split from end to end.

This is a good demonstration of log setup, face openings, and sawing techniques depending upon the cut list and final use of the lumber.  There is no "right" or "wrong" just different.