Cherry for wood working, wild ok?

[samandothers]

I have not done a great deal of woodworking but have done some.  I have used pine, oak and some walnut. I recently used some cherry and liked the way it turned out.  I am also starting to run a fever for a band saw mill as I have access to timber and think I could harvest the wood and dry it plus have some fun.

Inthe area I would harvest the wood there is a lot of what I have called wild cherry, which may be the same as black cherry.  Is this what is refered to a cherry used in furniture or at least a species that would yield a pretty red colored wood?  I have never thought about using them in wood working.  Almost considered them as more of a pain.  If they fell in an area where there were cattle the tree had to be removed before the leaves wilt and cattle eat them as it will kill the cattle, or so I have heard.

[tyb525]

There is really only one cherry that gets to sawlog-size, and that is black cherry. I'll bet you have black cherry. Do you have pictures of the bark or leaves?

[Ianab]

You may have Prunus Avium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_avium

It's a European species but has become naturalised in many parts of the US, and here in NZ

From the link above.

The species has also escaped from cultivation and become naturalised in some temperate regions, including southwestern Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the northeast and northwest of the United States

The wood is perfectly good for woodworking, but may have a slightly different colour and grain to your native Black Cherry. If you have some good logs, saw them up and use it like you would use normal cherry.

Timber
The hard, reddish-brown wood (cherry wood) is valued as a hardwood for woodturning, and making cabinets and musical instruments

Also -

All parts of the plant except for the ripe fruit are slightly toxic, containing cyanogenic glycosides.

Those cyanide compounds get concentrated in dry leaves and can poison animals if they eat enough of them, hence the advice about cattle and downed trees.

Ian

[Okrafarmer]

He didn't seem to say where he lives, but black cherry is the primary wild cherry of the eastern United States, and the only one that typically gets to millable size (12" or more). But any cherry you can get a saw log out of will make you some good lumber. Wild black cherry is typically a spindly, sparse-looking tree with charcoal-colored bark that is rough and somewhat scaly in appearance. They often look sickly and non-thriving. The small branches and twigs are usually a kind of maroon color with smooth bark and transverse light-colored intermittent lines. Fruit are black, about the size of peas, with the pit being about 80% of the size of the fruit. Leaves are small, approximately oval-shaped. They can get quite large, say 3 ft. diameter or so, but typically they max out around 12-18" in my area, with a very few larger examples.

[SwampDonkey]

Pin cherry also can yield small logs. I've had some up to 14" dbh, of course not top diameter, but yield boards very similar to our wild black cherry. The color in our black cherry is not uniform like PA grown cherry. You'll get contrasting color from ring to ring. I gave some pin cherry away to an old guy who had it milled, hard to tell the difference.

[WDH]

Black cherry is also called wild cherry.  Where are you located?  That would help to know.  Go to your profile and add that information for future reference.

[Ga_Boy]

In Southern Maryland there are two Cherry varities; Black Cherry and Choke Cherry.  Black Cherry produces a sweet fruit, the Choke Cherry produces a bitter fruit; hence the name Choke Cherry.

The Choke Cherry has a smoth bark with a slight gold tent, the wood has more of red color to it, Black Cherry has a corse bark similar to a Pine, the wood has more of a Brown color with some hint of red.

[Ianab]

End of they day, as far as I'm aware any of the Cherry species are useful for woodworking. There may be differences in colour etc, but it's all "Cherry".

The question then becomes are the trees big enough, and good enough form, to make good saw logs. If yes, then get cutting.  ;D

Pics of the bark and leaves would help work out exactly what you have.

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

The choke cherry we have up here tastes like wild black cherry, both will pucker your lips shut. It isn't bitter so much as it feels like your mouth just swallowed something dry. Once it's cooked into jelly it looses the pucker. And most choke cherry here is no bigger than your wrist and grow like a hedge.

[sealark37]

Cherry is my favorite wood for furniture and nice projects.  It is very  stable and lends itself to ripping, planing, and sanding.  The only concern is the discoloration that occurs when you use dull tools on it.  Even with a clear finish, it does darken with the years.  Regards, Clark

[Al_Smith]

Cherry is often refered to as Americas mahogany .It will finish as smooth as silk .One thing to be aware of when working it with power tools is it burns easily especially with cross grain cuts .
As such it's important  as with any other woods to keep sharp tooling components especially with cherry .I find carbide works the best for me .

I live in the midwests "walnut belt " which is also known for cherry .Occasionally you can find a 24" diameter lumber grade log but would agree that 18" is more the norm .

Ironically you find some of the nicest trees in fence rows evidently left by birds dropping the seeds .It can be salvaged by cutting up above the fence height and would work for hobbist type sawyers but mills wouldn't take a chance on it for fear of metal . . You loose about 5- 6 feet from the bottom of the log but that's just firewood .It burns pretty well ,smells nice around yule time season too .

[samandothers]

Thank you all for the feedback and information.  I will now show the tree more respect and plan to use it.

I will update the profile.  I live in Charlotte NC, however the trees are on land in Southwest Va near the Blue Ridge Parkway about 2600' altitude.  The trees do seem to be along an old fence line but also random in a field along with some yellow locust.  There are several that are 15 to 18 " dbh and are tall probably 50 to 70 feet I am guessing.  They do appear spindly and not full as the oaks are poplar near by.   Next time I am back on the land I will do my best to remember to take some pictures and return and post them.  The bark is smooth and gray on the smaller trees and as the tree gets bigger it appears to be more scaly looking.  The fruit as I recall is small, pea sized and dark red almost black in color.  I have dug some of the smaller ones up out of the field and the roots appear to run horizontal near the top of the ground versus a tap root. 

Thanks again for sharing the knowledge. There are several that would make good logs and lumber.  I look forward to working with one of these one of these days.

[WDH]

Yes, you have black cherry.

[Okrafarmer]

Now that you know what you have, you would do well to search for and read earlier posts on this forum about the best ways to mill, dry, and work with cherry. My experience is that it is a little trickier to dry than some, so you will want to study up on it for best results.  ;)  :P

[WDH]

The only problem that I have had with it is that any board with the pith in it will crack.  Any 8/4 board near the pith will crack.  Otherwise, it dries pretty fast, much faster than oak.

[Ianab]

Logs that size certainly sound like something useful.

If you are cutting them for your own use you don't need to worry so much about the technical grading rules. So if you end up with boards only 6ft long, or 4" wide boards, or a bit a wane etc, this isn't an issue. Most woodworking projects only use pieces 1, 2, 3 ft long. So you can cut good pieces out of less then perfect boards.

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

There are several that are 15 to 18 " dbh and are tall probably 50 to 70 feet I am guessing.  They do appear spindly and not full as the oaks are poplar near by.   

Might be that they are being suppressed by the other species. Black cherry will not survive in a sugar maple forest after the hardwood canopy closes in. That will be the end of the cherry. Cherry has to be dominant in height to persist. Needs more light.

Fire/Pin cherry (red foliage)



Black cherry in flower





A welcome sight in spring time.

[Okrafarmer]

Very true, SD. Around here, at least, black cherry is one of the pioneer species whenever an area grows back up to woods. Some of the other species are sweetgum, tulip tree, water oak, and shortleaf pine. If the other species gain the height advantage on the cherry (and they typically do), the cherry will perish. It is not at all uncommon to find areas with adolescent tulip, pine, sweetgum, and oak growing up to 50-60 ft tall, with hundreds of stunted cherry trees straggling beneath. Most of these unfortunate cherries will perish in the 3-6-inch diameter range and rot back into the forest floor. A few will persist and grow slowly if they can find some light. Cherries are more likely to survive around here on the edge of a field, clearing, or yard. But at the best of times, they still don't spread and look "flourishing" like oaks and certain other species do. I know of 2 and only 2 cherries in this area that are healthy, more than 2' in diameter, and would yield fairly straight logs. They are often very twisty and gnarly around here. Of the few that make it to, say, 18", probably only 30% are reasonably straight enough to yield more than a single 8' log. Milling cherry for personal use and local casual sales is often a matter of milling 4-8 foot logs.

[SwampDonkey]

Cherry of any species up here in NB isn't even considered a crop tree to be managed for. It is too diseased to reliably look at getting a log from. Most of  black cherry is in the settlements where cutting is more frequent and just about all of them get black knot either in the branches or main stem or both. You can find a 8-10' log once in awhile, but you have to do a lot of bucking with most of it and get mostly short sections.

[Okrafarmer]

Yes, on the managed parcels around here cherry is considered mainly an incidental species. Oaks, pines, tulip tree (yellow poplar), and sweet gum are the primary managed species around here-- sweet gum mainly because it's pervasive and can't be gotten rid of anyway.  ;D

[samandothers]

This is great information.  Much of it clicks with the trees I am seeing.  A couple or near openings, an old road near edge of wooded area.  These trees are large but are not reals straight.  There are several smaller trees in the old field that has some new growth but no other dominate trees.  The trees in the field are not very big as they are fairly young.  The other species around them are locust, some walnut.

I appreciate the education.

I am starting a pole barn for equipment.  It will be a bit before any mill arrives in my life.  Initial siding may be 4x8 sheets to get something up.  Later shed or lean to for a saw mill and then the cherries!

[Okrafarmer]

The trees in the field are not very big as they are fairly young.  The other species around them are locust, some walnut.

I am starting a pole barn for equipment. 

Cha-ching! Cut those locusts and use them as poles for your pole barn! They won't rot before you do!  ;D  Then you will have gotten them out of the way for the cherries and walnuts to grow better.  ;)

[hackberry jake]

Here's a pic of a cherry butt log that came from the best cherry specimen I've ever seen. This tree made 7 logs. The small end on the butt log was 38" 

[Okrafarmer]

HBJ, that is a butt.     I mean a beaut.  How long was it? That must be some serious bf there.

[Ianab]

Yeah, that's a pretty serious Cherry log. I read they can grow up to 36", but you don't see them that big very often. Looks like it's all solid as well. 

Ian