cherry characteristics

[Harvey M. Taylor]

Cherry does darken with age/sunlight,right? Bought some cherry and it is almost white like some maple I already have.Confused in 'cowtown' Tx. Max

[Judy Kingery]

Hi Max,

Well, depends; course not that I know anything truly. But I have some White Cherry that never did darken at all, turned beautifully, smells wonderful. Then I did some Red Cherry that darkened only slightly. Don't know if that helps but that's my experience with it. Turns great though other than some warp if it's green or might crack if it's really wet.

Best to you,

Jude

[Mike Stephens]

The white is the sap wood. The darker (red) is the heartwood. Cherry will darken over time and is affected by sunlight.

[Jeff Nicol]

Max, I know that some of the wood that I get from different areas here in WI will have different colors and smell just from the soil and nutrients in the soil. Some of the cherry that I get from heavy wet soil will be darker and more pungent than a tree that was grown in a more sandy loamy area. Some of the trees I get that are growing in town that get larger faster are the lighter colored wood. So could be something like that, or the tree was very large and the wood closest to the sapwood will be lighter than the heart wood. That is why wood is such a great medium to work with it has surprises within !

Jeff

[Dick Sowa]

Cherry does darken with age/sunlight,right?

I don't know about the difference between cherry sapwood vs heartwood, but here's a cherry bowl I turned in 1988, along with a picture I took of the same bowl last year. It doesn't really darken, as much as it gets redder, and all the pretty grain patterns tend to disappear.

http://www.digitalwinners.com/pics/woodwork/BOWL-3.jpg
http://www.digitalwinners.com/pics/woodwork/P1000442a.jpg

[Jack Riley]

There is a difference in cherry from the north versus southern Black Cherry. The SBC is darker (deeper red) and if whatever you make of it is exposed to sunlight from windows it darkens more rapidly. Keep it out of direct sunlight and the red lasts longer.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Cherry does darken with age/sunlight,right? Bought some cherry and it is almost white like some maple I already have.Confused in 'cowtown' Tx. Max

Harvey there are several different Cherry trees, they are all in the Prunes group of trees, with plums and peach and apricot and cherry in there, some are hybrids also, like the sweet Cherry where the fruit Cherries are grown on, also several wild native Cherries, like the Laurel Cherry, the Pin Cherry, the Choke Cherry and the Black Cherry.
All but the Black Cherry are smaller trees, still they can get to be 20" thick or even larger size if growing under the best of conditions, though usually are in the 6" to 12" range.

Now I have never seen a Cherry wood that didn't darken up, even with very little light the wood color changes, I do suspect that oxidation does play a role here.

I happen to have a couple of picture here, 3, that show a freshly turned Black Cherry bowl, the same one later when just returned and again a few months later, it does show the color changes quite well I think, also note the difference between sap and heartwood, they both darken but stay a difference color.

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So you see they do change color but some start off lighter and will not darken as much, I found that slower grown Cherry has darker heartwood than fast grown Cherry, as the not growing wood gets the minerals in that make for the colored heartwood, the thinner the year rings the more minerals per volume there seem to be.

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One more that shows the color difference between sap and heartwood , this one is Black Walnut

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[alex carey]

I seem to remember reading in a turning book that ALL wood will turn brownish if left in the sun long enough. Haven't tested it so I have no idea if it's true.