Is there a prefered cut for cherry?

[Tim Leo]

Everyone knows about quartersawn white oak, and that it looks great when making Stickley or Arts & Crafts style furniture.

I've been wondering about some other woods and furniture styles recently. I am thinking about making a side table out of cherry in the Shaker style. What is the prefered cut of wood for this? quartersawn? flat sawn?

Would quarter sawn cherry look nice?

thanks in advance for your advise and comments.
Tim

[Jim Becker]

QS cherry is a lot more subtle than many other species such as white oak and sycamore...'depends upon the particular tree whether or not you get anything notable. Not many suppliers offer QS cherry, either. For my cherry pieces, I like to use straight grained material for legs with the grain running across the diagonals to avoid flat-sawn figure on all sides of them. (actually, I do that for any wood when I can) This can be accomplished by carefully cutting leg material from the edges of 8/4 or thicker boards (depending on the design of the piece) where you are more likely to find that diagonal grain. The remainder of the board can be re-sawn into panel and apron stock where plain sawn grain is less problematic or for "utility" pieces within the project.

For aprons and table tops, I worry less about the specific figure as much as I do with careful grain matching across the assembly and between adjacent boards. With cherry, you also need to be careful about color matching as there is a degree of variability that will only become more noticable over time. If you can source lumber for a project "from the same tree", you'll have the best time with that, although even within a single tree there can be some variability in color. Now, if you can find some nice QS cherry that is color matched, I bet that would make an awesome table top!

[Roger Myers]

I love working with cherry....certainly my favorite wood. Plain sawn cherry can vary from rather "plain" to some outstanding figure, with some curly cherry being truly breathtaking. Legs, rails and styles often call for less "attention getting" figure so some rift sawn, or quartersawn, or the selections from plain sawn that are less bold are what I look for. I save the figured pieces for tabletops, doors and door panels, and so on. Sapwood, although generally to be avoided can be used to advantage sometimes (bookmatched pieces with the sapwood mating in the center for example), or died and/or toned to blend in. Like Jim, I look to take legs from straighter grain stock. Aprons, rails, and styles are laid out so the grain does not overpower, and that any figure compliments the individual piece (symetrical about the center of the piece, etc.)
Sometimes (most often?), the answer comes to you when laying out the stock....
For example, the legs on a bookcase that I took from 12/4 stock had some outstanding "ray fleck" on one two faces....legs were milled to take advantage of this. The edge of the top panel (from the same tree as Jim mentioned) also had some great looking figure. It was not overpowering, but a real highlight on the piece, which hs only improved as the cherry aged. Attached is a pic of a corner showing the edge of the top shelf, and one of the legs. The panel you see in the pic is maple. Quality of the pic isn't great, but you get the idea.

So, it depends....
Choose wisely, it can make or break the project!
Roger