Purchasing black cherry

[Osric]

Someone has offered to sell me 4 black cherry logs for $260.  Here is what I know about them so far:

"there is a nine footer with a 13" diameter, a ten footer with a 13" dia., a ten footer with a 14" dia., and a twelve with 14"."

He claims they are straight without limbs coming off them, came from a home site (although he didn't mention whether they were yard trees or trees that were cleared to build the home).

The sizes work well for my mill (18" max), so that is a plus and I haven't actually seen them yet, much less checked with the metal detector to see if there is anything in them.  But assuming that the logs are as good as he is suggesting, is $260 a fair price for these logs?  I've never bought logs before, but could use some cherry in the next couple years for some furniture projects. 

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[Furby]

Most probly he is giving you the measurement of the big end of the log from outside the bark edge to outside the bark edge.
That would mean the logs themselves are really much smaller as you normally measure inside the bark and on the smallest end.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt and using his numbers, doyle scale totals the four logs at 281 board feet.
At those sizes, on that scale and his price, you are paying about 92.5 cents a board foot.

Another thing is what length they are actually cut.
If they are right on 9',10' and 12', then they are too short and should be scaled a foot shorter to 8',9' and 11'.

I'll let someone else tell you if it's a good price, but I personally wouldn't buy them for that price.
The red tool box on the left side of your page has some tools to help you figure board feet and such if you need them.

[flip]

Tell him you won't charge him to remove them from where they are and you'll call it "even".  Tell him fiddy bucks and you'll bring him a few boards.  I would pass on that unless you REALLY need cherry. 

[Larry]

It's a full time job keeping me and myself solvent, so my comments are worth what ya paid for em.  I suspect if he was a logger he would already have them sold...if he's not a logger he is fishing...trying to make a little more than what firewood would bring him.  A low ball offer might just work.

Few things to look at before you decide to bring that cherry home.  A lot of people don't like cherry sapwood so I would pay close attention to the sapwood ring.  Your already going to buy a lot of sap just because the logs are small.  But small logs are a plus when sawing on doyle as the overrun is going to be a lot...you should get a lot more than the 281 BF Furby calculated.  Cherry also has a unique defect...gum pockets.  Not sure what causes it but trees from one area will have a lot while trees 20 miles away might not have much.  I've also seen cherry with doty hearts...don't know if that is common or not.  And than you have all the other defects common in logs...bird peck, shake, splits, and who knows what else.

Sometimes ya just gotta pay your money and take your chances...and if you make a mistake chalk it up to your education.

[metalspinner]

I addition to what the other have mentioned...

Many people do not know the differance between diameter and circumferance. :  Don't get your hopes up.  If he measured correctly, expect lots of sap.

He claims they are straight

In my area, the crookedest tree in the woods is cherry.  Never saw a truly straight one. :-\

[Brad_S.]

He claims they are straight without limbs coming off them, came from a home site

This is another yellow flag. It may not have limbs coming off it now, but it may have 10 years ago. They may be covered with "cat faces" where there were once limbs and are now overgrown. To the untrained eye, the log may look clear but one slabbing cut will reveal the knots lying beneath. This is especially true of "home site" trees as they had plenty of space to spread out in versus a woods grown tree which will give cleaner stems.
Make sure it's black cherry and not a choke cherry.
Buck a board foot for cherry isn't too bad if they are all he says they are but they are pretty small. If in doubt, I usually offer what an equal amount of firewood would cost. It's getting harder and harder to get the suggestion flip offered to work as firewood prices rise. Some people will turn them into firewood out of spite if they feel they were low-balled.

[Ironwood]

That is ALOT of money  for small logs. Cherry can have alot of hidden problems. I recently bought a MONSTER double cherry yard tree. Looked awsome clear and nice. I paid $275 for it. Was it worth it, so so. The logs were generous but had some funky grain issues (blotches). If i had to do it again I would have passed. When I say "paid" I paid my buddy and his tree service guys to take it down, the owner gave it to me. I will attach some pics. These were the lowers. There were many more in the range you are talking above these. 



Ironwood

[Ironwood]

One other fun story, buddy calls me. Add in the paper he says, "41" diameter cherry for sale"  So, next few days when I get a chance drive 30 miles to look at the monster, try 41" in CIRCUMFERENCE. DUH.  I ended up with them, but simple High School Geometery  would tell you the answer. Nice guy, but HELLO!

               Ironwood

[Dale Hatfield]

Im starting a small lot clearance today that i allowed the homeowner 500 off of total bill for the cherry logs. Their are 7 trees 3 of which are only fire wood. I wouldnt have allowed anything if we didnt have a boom truck to load the logs with. Toatal bill was 1300 bucks and in the end im sure that I prolly allowed to much for the logs.
Ill let ya know how we fair in the end
Dale

[Osric]

Make sure it's black cherry and not a choke cherry.

Any easy way of telling the difference?  Don't think I've ever even heard of "choke cherry."

[Kelvin]

choke cherry looks like an oranmental cherry or fruit tree cherry.  Large plates kinda looks like a birch in a way.  You can tell them apart easy.  The ones in the photo above are black cherry.  However both woods are sold together and i can't tell a difference in them when i've had them side by side.  Don't know if there are any drawbacks, but you often don't see them as large as a black cherry.

As for buying them only seeing them will tell.  I would only pay for butt logs.  Often on tree, even growing in the woods, after you get above 16' you are going to have lower grade lumber.  I pay $.50 for decent cherry logs and would go up to $1 only on nice logs like the ones in the photos above.  Those look amazing, though like the post said, you never know whats inside.  Around me they tend to grow in flood plains and have rotten hearts which isn't too bad.  You also have scrap metal issues near homes, so you can mentaly tack on some for wrecked blades.

I would tell him what you are willing to pay, which is ligitimit and most people respect that.  I would offer $.50 for the tally of any logs below branches, certainly no uppers, and then if any "uppers" looked all right, i would pay $.25 a bd ft for them.  This can be a learning experience.  Once you buy them and saw them you will see what you actually end up with as far as usuable lumber and then next time no what to walk away from.  Heck, its real cheap tution in the school of lumber making.  At least you aren't sitting in some stuffy class while someone blabbers at you.  Small diameter logs are also agravating and don't yeild much for the time spent, especially wide sap band cherry logs.  When you make a square inside the useable heart wood that 12" diameter tree will be like a 9" oak tree, and i don't know to many people who would pay anything for a 9" anything.  However somepeople use the sap, and i have some cherry sap lumber that is 100% pure sap.  Really weird.  Looks like white cherry.  Kinda cool.  Couldn't saw off all that wood and chuck it.  At least its better than poplar for cabinet parts.

You can do like Daren has mentioned.  Say, "okay.  Heres what i'll pay, but if you think is worth a lot more i'll take the logs saw them for you and you can dry them and try sell them in the paper and make all the money!  "  I like that one.  It really lets them decide if they want to really make the big money like us rich guys.  Ha!!  You'll make a lot more sawing those logs for him then sawing them for yourself after buying them!
Good luck.
KP

[Dale Hatfield]

Ok so  the trees are down  yards clean logs hauled and sold. How did it work out well.
I allowed 500 for the cherry logs from 7 trees 3 which were small 1 had no but log  it forked at the ground. So in one day felled chipped and stacked logs by hand and by use of a Big dolly. Truck came in loaded em up hauled em to the mill. Their were 31 sellable logs down to 10 inches and i pushed it down to 8.   they paid 761 for the logs. So I made 261 over what i thought they would bring. Plus the 30 mins load time 45 mins drive to the mill and back. so in the end  was it worth it?
Dale

[Dana]

If it wasn't worth doing, you probably wouldn't have done it right? ;D

[rebocardo]

> I've never bought logs before

Neither have I, I have people pay me to take them away. When I had my mill I used to split the wood with the owner or sell it back for $0.50 a foot once cut.

Are they all from one tree? Or are they from four little stunted back yard trees with nails, hooks, and telephone/120v staples up the side?

I would offer $1 a linear foot or $50 max. If they are so valuable then offer to split it 70 (you) /30 (him), let him pick his 1st ten boards, and he can sell his own lumber and make a real killing  ;)

I would pay $260 only AFTER I cut them. If these trees were wind damaged or pushed over with a dozer, the chances are they are good for nothing else other then firewood or bbq wood.

Example:

He basically wants $6 a linear foot, cut a log, junk? Push it to the side, have him take it for firewood, deduct (# of feet x $6)  from the $260.

[Osric]

just thought I'd throw in an update out there.

I sent him an email back saying that I'd pay $150 IF they were in the condition he stated (which was very nice) AND if my metal dectector didn't pick up anything.

I haven't heard back from him since, so either he found another buyer, he thinks I'm trying to lowball him, or may be looking at having the wood cut himself.  Maybe after they sit on the ground for 6 months, he'll give me a call back.

[SwampDonkey]

Hmmm choke cherry is just a shrub. What Kelvin is describing sounds to me like what we call cherry birch or black birch, since he's describing a birch like bark. Choke cherry wouldn't get much bigger than 6 inches on the butt and most are about an inch.




This is what black cherry bark looks like up here. South of here it looks a lot like maple.  :


I had one orchard grown cherry with 54 growth rings on the stump and each ring was almost 4/10" wide. 17" butt @ 54 years. It was nice lumber to and surprisingly stable for fast grown.

[Kelvin]

Aha!  Choke cherries get to be about 14" or so around here in central michigan and they can be sawn for lumber.  I've cut 'em and sold them.  I don't know, maybe they were the biggest ones ever recorded and i just didn't know, but tis true!  This is why i can tell you the lumber is almost impossible to tell apart.  I've got them on my property at about 8" right now, but i've sawn bigger ones.  They are a more scrubby tree than black cherry, but no i'm not mistaking them for any birches.  I've just saying the plates wrap around the tree paper like, instead of black cherry that have little flaky bark.  They look like a fruit tree bark or ornamental cherries you see planted around homes.  As far as giving people prices, i'm starting to suspect that people are having me drive out to look at their trees b/c they are planning on making a deal with someone else and they don't care about wasting my day looking at them.  Contractors of all types get this kind of treatment.  I don't know how to ask ahead of time if they really are intending on selling me the logs.  THis is happening more and more recently.  Homeowners love to pull this one.
KP

[SwampDonkey]

And they aren't pin (fire) cherry?






I gotta see these 14" choke cherries.  Cause they grow in southern Ontario and they ain't no where that big.

Ya see I tell ya's that snow line is a big influence. ;D

[Osric]

Aha!  Choke cherries get to be about 14" or so around here in central michigan and they can be sawn for lumber.  I've cut 'em and sold them.  I don't know, maybe they were the biggest ones ever recorded and i just didn't know, but tis true!  This is why i can tell you the lumber is almost impossible to tell apart.  I've got them on my property at about 8" right now, but i've sawn bigger ones.  They are a more scrubby tree than black cherry, but no i'm not mistaking them for any birches.  I've just saying the plates wrap around the tree paper like, instead of black cherry that have little flaky bark.  They look like a fruit tree bark or ornamental cherries you see planted around homes.  As far as giving people prices, i'm starting to suspect that people are having me drive out to look at their trees b/c they are planning on making a deal with someone else and they don't care about wasting my day looking at them.  Contractors of all types get this kind of treatment.  I don't know how to ask ahead of time if they really are intending on selling me the logs.  THis is happening more and more recently.  Homeowners love to pull this one.
KP

I used to do computer onsite work out of my house.  One thing that I started doing was charging a $25 "consulting fee" when I was asked to go out to a site.  If they used me for the service, that money was put towards the final bill.  If they didn't use me, at least I has some money in my pocket.  Your time is probably more valuable than mine was 20 years ago, so you migh want to charge a higher fee, but it is worth considering if you are wasting a lot of time doing estimates for free.

[SwampDonkey]

I agree. It's not like you are working off the dole for some government agency. It costs time and money to go somewhere that may or may not be fruitful. If it's fruitful, then consider giving a credit on the deal. I'd charge $75 for these go looksie trips and I'd get names, numbers and addresses before I walked out the kitchen door. Might be harsh, but your not getting a subsidy so there has to be some sort of compensation from somewhere. I can guarantee ya, that little fee would be a lot less than trying to factor something into the purchase price that compensates for the 10 wasted trips you made to get one good deal. ;)

If it was a small amount of logs and I owned them, I'd say you can have them if you want them no strings attached. I wouldn't ask ya to clean up the brush neither. If they were valuable to me, I'd haul them to the mill myself and not waste anyone's time. Don't cost any more to run one log at a time through the mill whether my name is on them or there are 15 guys logs marked out there in a pile. Scale them on delivery and write me a cheque and I'm off. Am I wrong? ;D

[Furby]

There was a choke cherry log at the school by my Grandma's a few years back when they cleared out the woods between the two schools.
I tried to get it and a couple others, but I was never able to get ahold of the person that could let me have them. :
The choke cherry was 24"+ at BH, but the first branch was not more then a foot or so above that.
It was as Kelvin said, a scrub type tree and had been growing near a stream.

[SwampDonkey]

The biggest I seen, and these were growing on a rich site beside a stream and down hill of a field that probably had all kinds of fertilizer run off over the years, was 4 inched on the stump and maybe  12 feet tall. Most I see are about 6 feet tall and growing in thickets like red osier dogwoods and never get no taller than 8 feet maybe. And about 3 inches on the stump, most around an inch.

Your chokecherry have to be a different species than ours. It can't be the latitude we are at because if that were the case the maple trees would be no bigger than lilac bushes. ;)

I've been consulting several references and they say 8" and 30 feet are the largest recorded chokecherries. Sounds like you may have an introduced cherry like sweet cherry or sour cherry, which have commonly escaped into the wild.

[Sparty]

I don't live too far from kelvin and we get pin cherries that max out  at about 14 inches or so...how did the lumber look? Anything like black cherry?  I've got a whole bunch of nice straight pin cherry, but never thought it would be worth sawing.

[SwampDonkey]

Oh my gosh Sparty!!! I've gave some away to an old timer that made a few trinkets from it. As you say 8-14" is about max. Try some, can't hurt.  ;D It looks similar the black cherry, but more sap. It will spoil quick so cut, saw and stack out of the weather. It's 'designed' to grow fast and rot quick. It'll peel like an onion if it spoils. ;D

[Sparty]

Well, I had to look this one up... my guide says choke cherries mature at about 6" diameter and 20' high, Which means a 12 incher probably isn't unheard of.  It looks like a relatively smooth background with lots of small to medium sized scabby scales.  It looks much different than the pin cherries that like swampdonky shows.  The pin cherries have scales that go around the tree like a horizontal stripe whereas the choke cherry scales are more randomly placed.  We also get sour and sweet cherries growing in certain woodlots.

"how can you tell black cherry from the other cherries?"

Maybe one of the foresters can explain it better, but in my experience, black cherry has much deeper furroughs and scales than the other cherries.  In general, if it is 16" diameter or larger its probably black cherry.

[SwampDonkey]

Which guide Sparty? I use Peterson's, Textbook of Dendrology and Native Trees of Canada. Choke cherries here have no scales on the bark except what we call lenticels. The bark is real dark, almost black with a gray cast. They have cherries here when they are barely any taller than a raspberry cane. The stem usually has so many branches or so crooked you'd never consider it for much more than a walking stick. The size limits I see it up to 8" and 30 feet in Peterson's. That's not maturity, that's end of life. ;)

They are the most hardy cherry on the continent and about the only shrub a hare doesn't chew the bark off of.

[rebocardo]

> I don't know how to ask ahead of time if they really are intending on selling me the logs

Depends on how much you want them. Myself, my estimates are usually free if I can work it into my travel. Otherwise I charge them $25 for any estimate and if it is a ways away, I tell them what I would probably charge, that I am showing up with my equipment, and I expect to start working once I get there.

[SwampDonkey]

Kelvin, Furb and Sparty, I'm just trying to fish more info out of ya about the choke cherries.


Back to black cherry. ;)

[Sparty]

Swampdonkey-
I am using  Audubon's guide  to eastern north american trees.  The bark description there reads: Brown or gray smooth or becoming scaly.  That matches my limited experiance with them.  They look like they have a smooth background with small/medium scales.  Most of the ones I have seen were in fence rows not in bushy groups.  We even had one big enough to put a ladder stand in and hunt from.  Most of the area were I live is not condusive to the type of choke cherry shrubs that you have.  The landscape is squares of farmland checkered with 40-60 year old woodlots.  Not alot of scrubland for the choke cherries.

[Furby]

I know what Black Cherry looks like, we have it all over around here and I see it every day.
The log I was talking about may not have been a Choke Cherry, and I never saw any leaves from it.
I'm 99.9% sure that log was NOT Black Cherry.

Interesting, a search on Cherry Birch brings up Betula lenta L. AKA Sweet Birch and shows the native range not covering MI.
But a search on Black Birch brings up Sweet Birch (Betula lenta) and shows it in Southern MI.

I have some up at the lake that I've never been sure about. Always thought they were Black Cherry until some posts on here a couple years ago on Black Birch. They sure seem to fit Black Birch better.
SD, would you be able to tell the difference between Black Birch and Black Cherry if I could get an end grain scan?

[WDH]

Furby, if you smash or scrap the bark off of a sweet birch twig, you will be rewarded with an overwhelming wintergreen  smell.  Like smelling an open can of Skoal .  If you get close enough to the trees to do an end-grain scan, try the smell test.  The bark of these two is distinctly different as well. 

Also, the leaves on sweet birch come off the twig in twin pairs from the same node.  Not so in black cherry where each node has a single leaf.

Leaf pic of sweet birch.  In the "Summer Foliage" section of the site, click on the thumnail of the leaves on the far right to see the paired leaves.

http://www.hort.uconn.edu/Plants/b/betlen/betlen1.html

[Furby]

Well I have a couple of small logs from one of the trees up at the lake, laying next to the mill right now.
They've been there about a year and a half, so I figure the smell is gone.
I don't remember smelling it while cutting them though.

In order for one to compare a smell to an open can of Skoal, one would need to know what an open can of Skoal smells like eh? ;)

[WDH]

Point well taken.  Take my word on it and save yourself $5.00 ;D.

Yep, the smell will most surely be gone.

[Furby]

I don't have $5, so I won't bother. ;)
Was just looking at your link and also looked at the Black Cherry at that link.
I simply can't say from memory as I'm thinking we might have both up there.
I know the pics they show of both trees have a wide range of bark types/looks.

Guess I'll have to wait until next summer and get some branches.

[SwampDonkey]

Yup, but it might be easier for you to do it on your end. Just use a utility knife to get a smooth surface on the end grain and wet it.

The birch has larger pores than the largest wood rays and the wood rays you won't see without a lens. The pores are tiny white dots between the wood rays. There are similar sized pores as the rays but you won't see them with the naked eye too well. Sometimes the growth rings are hardly visible without a lens. I have a shot of the yellow birch end grain in the end grain thread. It's going to be the same as the black birch, besides color of wood. Wood Tech says the birches cannot be separated by anatomy.

In the cherry you don't need a hand lens to see the wood rays. In black cherry the heart is pinkish, not gonna be in the birch, well I'm lying  :D sometimes we get pink heart in yellow birch, not sure if you get it in black birch, so we better ignore that tip. The wood rays are going to be the slam dunk. ;D

Yeah I know you know was black cherry is. ;D

Your black birch/cherry birch is in Michigan if it's in southern Ontario, which it is but rare. In school we were told black birch was the common name we were to use (or be docked points  : ) for proper common name, but native trees of Canada call it cherry birch. I had that argument once in Va with my friend. :D :D It's the same with the Manitoba maple/boxelder when I'm looking at one in the same here in the yard and along the river valley and being told we don't have it here.  In that case it's invasive and only native to the Prairies as i recall. Same with burr oak, not listed here, but I can go to the woods and put my bare hands on wild burr oak trees.  :

[WDH]

In that case it's invasive and only native to the Prairies as i recall. Same with burr oak, not listed here, but I can go to the woods and put my bare hands on wild burr oak trees.  :

Yep, just because it ain't native.................Well, Yankees Northerners ain't native to these parts, but I can put my bare hands on them as well.  They might not kindly cotton to that , though :D.

[SwampDonkey]

What did you find out Furb? ;D

[SwampDonkey]

I see at the Forestry Canada Seed Bank here in Fredericton, they have some cherry birch in storage which was collected in St Catherines (Port Dalhousie), Ontario in 1999.

lat: 43.10 long: 79.10

[Furby]

Had a funeral to attend today, so I didn't get a log dug out of the snow.
I'll get back to you with a scan as I'm not sure I'd be able to see what you were describing.

[SwampDonkey]

Be sure and use the highest resolution (1200 DPI or more?) of the scanner and in preview, use the size gadgets to select an area covering an inch (or slightly bigger) square. That will blow it up big (zoom).

The picture I have of the cherry end grain isn't that great, too rough. But, you can see the rays. When I say the pores (white dots) on the birch are between the rays. Well take my word for it, you wont see the rays without magnification. But anyway, rays and pores don't over lap, I mean a ray doesn't cut a pore in half. ;)

[Furby]

Ok, things didn't go as planned. :
I had some trouble trying to shave it down smooth due too the chainsaw marks and you can sorta see some of the shave marks as it isn't totally flat.
I ended up breaking it smaller then planned while trying to shave it. :-\
Too make matters worse, the scanner only goes up to 600 dpi. :

So if you can't tell anything from this pic, then I'll have to cut off a bigger piece and run it past the table saw before shaving it.
Then I'll have to dig out the better scanner and hook it up.

[WDH]

Furby, what you have there is an oak.  Definitely not cherry or birch.

[Furby]

Oh really ???
Guess I gotta stop looking at bark and leaves and even wood color. ;)

Honestly, I thought the same thing while shaving it, but I give you my word that that is not an oak.

[SwampDonkey]

That's cherry. I think WDH might be seeing big open pores for some reason. I think the piece is suffering a bit from being frozen and frosty and not being shaved real smooth. Beleive me it's hard to get a smooth shaving of cherry or any hardwood.  ;D  But, I see 6 semi-distinct rings and very distinct rays (those vertical white lines). No way to mistake that for birch.  If you had a hand lens you would see pores, but you would have to have real good eyesight to see them otherwise. Ya did real good Furby.

[WDH]

Furby, you and SD are right.  FedEx me some of that cherry, and be sure to add some crow .  I will cook the crow with some grits.  After it is all cooked, I am sure y'all would throw out the grits and just eat the crow ;D.

I mistook the saw marks as growth rings.  Instead of many rings in the pic, I now see that there are only about 5.  I also can see the single row of large pores at the beginning of the growth ring.  Where is the crow eating smiley ???.

[SwampDonkey]

WDH is right the pores are a bit larger at the beginning of the growth ring, but I haven't good enough eye sight to see them. I'm pretty sure the largest pores are narrower than the largest ray. The wood can be semi diffuse like butternut as well, not always. The pores kind of cluster a bit as you move into the late wood. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Furby, you understand why it ain't birch or errm oak? ;)  If you run your tongue across a fresh cut surface you should taste a hint of bitter almond. ;)

[Gary_C]

If you run your tongue across a fresh cut surface you should taste a hint of bitter almond.

Ya and if it was  aspen you wouldn't have slivers in your tongue after you did that.  :D

[Furby]

I'm pretty much seeing what you described, but being able to tell it apart from birch will have to wait until I can see both side by side.
I really need to take a closer look at the bark and leaves/branches next summer and compare them to some other trees up there as well as at home.
After all, most of my ID work is on standing trees and cutting one down just to ID it isn't a really good practice to get into I don't think!  :D

[WDH]

Too much work ;D.

[SwampDonkey]

It don't matter when it's standing, just call'm palm trees. And if you day dream real hard, that cold white stuff turns to warm sand. I can see Furby out there now making sand angles and sand castles. ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Well as I said before, black cherry bark is different from one corner of it's range to another as is sugar maple. Sugar maple is probably more confusing.

[Furby]

Have you seen where my pin is SD ???

[SwampDonkey]

 ;D

[Furby]

Ok, since this thread has already been wandering around.........
Tell me what you see:

[SwampDonkey]

Well, I see definite wood rays and growth rings. Not magnified enough to see pores. So if i can see rays, but not pores that rules out maple and birch is ruled out because largest pores are easier to see than largest rays. Narrows it down to at least one possibility, and that is cherry. There is also a bit of staining in the wood. How'd I do? ;D

[Furby]

Well, I thought it was Cherry, right up until I tried splitting the stuff. :-\
It don't split and is heavier then Cherry.
The bark looks like Cherry and the grain/color looks like Cherry.
Yes there is some staining due to laying around for three years now. :

[SwampDonkey]

Your suppose to split firewood when it's green and frozen. Ask Marcel. ;)

All kidding aside, it's likely cherry. What else did you have in mind, maybe we can eliminate them by anatomy.  ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Furby, do you see real faint rays between wider ones? I can't in the picture, but to see the piece in my hands I might. I mean 3 or more, they are hard to see. If so, then it could be rock maple (in fact it would be rock maple because those are intermediary rays), which of course is quite heavy compared to cherry. I've not seen rock maple turn red (pink) though, not even when spoiled.

[Furby]

I kinda thing I might.
It sorta looks like a lot more rays in person then I can see in the posted pics.
They all look the same though.
This log was laying a pile of Black Cherry logs and looked the same, and even the color on the ends.

[SwampDonkey]

black cherry then, your my eyes.  ;)

[Furby]

First Black Cherry I've ever found that wouldn't split no way, no how! :-\
Course, when I try to get a piece of it to put on a lathe...... it's checked all the way through. :

[SwampDonkey]

Sounds like the cherry I have. You have some pith in the piece? Firewood.  : Some of that cherry I bought from PA doesn't have as distinct growth rings on the flat sawn surface as my local cherry. On my local cherry the rings are as distinct as spruce rings. But mine oxidizes to the red brown color like the stuff I bought.

[Furby]

I can get some pith, but not right now, my table saw won't go in far enough.
I need to buck this piece with the chainsaw and then I should be able to get a piece.

[SwampDonkey]

I mean the pith and the juvenile wood surrounding it will split to pieces. Avoid it.  ;) I tried some on the lathe and it pulled apart in front of me.

[Furby]

Ah yeah, well when it won't split and it's firewood length, it just gets tossed in the pile. ;)
I took the saw to it yesterday and squared it up, but it really isn't useable as it has already checked all over. :

Think I've got a nice chunk of spaulted Maple to mess with though.

[SwampDonkey]

I have 6 or 8 - 6x6" and I have turned and looked them over a dozen times to see if I could buck a turning block out. Nope, no way. Only thing I can do is run some sections through the band saw and maybe slice some 2" stuff out. And I'm not going to put a lot of time into it. I might just need some nice cherry firewood.  ;D ;D

[Furby]

Well I milled up the two logs from up at the lake that the scan in reply #40 came from.
No question....... they were Black Cherry.

[SwampDonkey]

Glad ya solved it. Now what are you are going to make?  ;)

[Furby]

No clue!