Cherry lumber

[DRB]

I have an opportunity to get some 80 year old cherry tree logs from an orchard. Would this be the same as the cherry that is used for furniture building that everybody seems to rave about?

Would these be worth milling?

Not use to milling many hardwoods as the good ones don't grow here. Mostly softwoods & birch here.

Thanks RB

 

[oldsaw]

If they are black cherry trees, yes. I've hooked into a couple recently and have a pretty decent stash going.

Mill away. Pay attention to the grain pattern, rotating the logs to keep the best face on the boards.

Mark

 

[timhar]

No, the cherry you find in an orchard is not black cherry, the fruit of the black cherry is small and bitter. The wood you have will have a similar looking grain but it will be more of a greenish color than black cherry and will not age into the reddish-brown that so many cherish. Additionally, orchard trees are encouraged to branch low to bare more fruit that is easy to reach, so the trunks are short. The trees are usually replaced before they reach any appreciable diameter although if yours are 80 years old, then maybe they are decent sized.
Still, mill it up and plan on staining it to get good color. I doubt you'll have nice wide, clear boards but something is better than nothing.

 

[DRB]

oldsaw & timhar thanks for the info

The cherry trees are of the edible fruit kind. They are about 20" to 24" in diameter and about 4 to 6 feet long before branches begin and there are 30 of them.

The guy that has them is to e-mail me some pics

I guess I will see what happens?

 

[dustytools]

I too say, go ahead and mill them up. You could end up with a bunch of nice lumber. Post a pic or two of the logs when you get the pictures if you would. Good luck with 'em.

 

[woodshop]

If it is indeed sweet cherry, as timhar suggests it might be, I ditto the fact that the wood is inferior to black cherry (prunus serotina), which is the furniture cherry most people talk about. As he said, sweet cherry tends to be a little greenish, and not as reddish. It also is not as hard, and tends to "fray" when going through the planer or jointer, somewhat like willow does. It never gets that deep reddish color that black cherry does, even after years in the sunlight. It does though have some nice cherry like ray fleck, and I've stained it with cherry stain to where in some cases it looks a lot like the true furniture cherry. If it were me, I would mill a few, but wouldn't have much use for a whole lot of it. Certainly not 30 of them. But hey... as has been siad a hundred times on this forum, one man's trash is another mans treasure.

 

[Husky137]

Worst case scenario, I bet they would make some real nice firewood.

 

[bluequill56]

Great for cooking, too.