Black Cherry
Your sweet lumber choice
“Pitch” pockets. Some cherry boards contain dark streaks caused by mineral deposits within the grain.
The popularity of black cherry lumber in North America goes back to the earliest Colonial times, when it was often called “the poor man’s mahogany.” It was also eagerly adopted for the clean furniture designs of the Shaker sect, which began organizing while General Washington was commanding the Continental Army. In an unbroken line since then, woodworkers still prize black cherry as a premier wood for cabinetry, furniture, and a host of items ranging from boxes and bowls to smoking pipes and even smaller projects. One key to its popularity is its distinctive color: a light pinkish-brown when freshly milled but darkening over time and with exposure to air and sunlight into a reddish-brown patina. The sapwood offers a distinct contrast with a pale yellow hue that doesn’t significantly darken over time. Sapwood is no longer considered a defect and can often be abundant within a batch of lumber so you’ll pay the same price for it per board foot. To get the best heartwood yield, cherry-pick individual boards when possible.
Putting black cherry to work
Cherry typically has very good dimensional stability, even texture, and relatively straight, but wavy grain. This slight wave gives the wood a lot of character and depth, but can also cause finishes to blotch and boards to tearout partway through a cut. Figured grain isn’t common but can be very attractive. Quartersawn cherry is far more subdued than the prominent fleck typical in quartersawn white oak but still looks great in small boxes or especially as the raised panel of a cabinet door.
Depending on the individual tree, the endgrain can be semi-ring-porous to diffuse-porous. I don’t consider the structure tight enough for hard-working cutting or charcuterie boards, but I understand the color appeal of using cherry strips in serving platters.
The wood usually doesn’t require grain filling under low-luster finishes, but achieving a high gloss surface is much easier after packing the pores.
With sharp blades and cutters, cherry cuts, planes, surfaces, and routs cleanly. But when tools are not at optimal sharpness or with a too-slow feed rate, surfaces rapidly show scorch marks. So whenever I work with cherry, I check tool alignment and touch up edges or even change blades. The few minutes that takes is much quicker than dealing with the problem. Burnt ends are great in Kansas City BBQ, but not on cherry boards. And while we’re on that topic, cherry offcuts too small for projects add great flavor at your backyard grill or smoker.
Cherry turns without any particular issues, but be sure to use effective dust protection measures, particularly when sanding. Otherwise, the fine dust can be a respiratory irritant.
Achieving a cherry finish
The look of cherry is so appealing that manufacturers of wood stains can’t resist concocting reddish tones that can be slathered on poplar, pine, or other woods to produce a vague resemblance to the genuine article. This is compounded by the countless number of commercial cabinets sprayed with colored toners to produce a uniform, dark cherry-esque finish. But neither stain nor spray toner can compete with the warm hue of natural cherry under a well-applied clear finish left to mellow with age.
That said, some of you will still prefer the uniformity that stains bring to the table, whether to disguise a little bit of sap wood, or to even out the color difference between parts made of cherry plywood and those made of solid stock. (Plywood is typically darker than solid wood because veneer logs are often conditioned before slicing with a heated water bath or by steam. Both of these processes usually darken the resulting veneer.) Because of cherry’s slightly wavy grain, it tends to blotch: unpredictably and unevenly absorbing a finish, even an untinted one. It can be maddening because by the time it happens, you’ve already driven down that one-way street. A couple suggestions to help deal with this. First, wipe down the surface with naphtha. This fast-drying solvent will reveal the areas likely to blotch before you commit. Then apply a thin coat of shellac to seal the surface before applying a stain or clear finish.
Aging with time. In the 14 years since I made this clock for Woodcraft Magazine Issue 30, it has mellowed to a warm, rich hue.
Don’t be duped: it’s a drupe. A cherry is technically a drupe, a fleshy fruit usually containing a single seed. Other drupes are plums and olives.
Left on its own. Black cherry trees can reach heights of 50 to 100 feet, with a diameter of 3 to 5 feet. In orchards, however, both black and sweet cherry trees (Prunus avium) are often pruned to limit size and encourage fruit production.
Black Cherry trivialities
Prepare for impact. Cherry has a rating of 950 on the Janka Hardness Scale, slightly less than black walnut’s 1010. That translates to fairly easy workability for furniture projects but probably not enough dent resistance for flooring or other high-impact uses.
Not part of the family tree. Lumber marketers, especially those in the flooring trade, often dream up product names that include “cherry” when the wood has a reddish tint—even when the botanical genus is completely unrelated to genuine cherry. Two imposters: “Brazilian cherry” (jatoba) and “Patagonian cherry” (tiete rosewood, sirari).
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Cherry is a relatively popular material for smoking pipes, with some designs even featuring bark attached to the bowl and stem. Cutting branches during an active growth period increases the chance that the bark will stay in place.
Smokin’ good lathe blanks. When you want cherry for bottle stoppers and other lathe projects, buy a bag of split logs sold for BBQ smokers. You’ll usually get blanks at a bargain price plus a delicious rack of baby back ribs.
Health benefits of black cherry. Companies that sell black cherry juice emphasize that it contains melatonin, reported to help regulate sleep. The juice is also said to contain antioxidants and may be beneficial in controlling inflammation.
