Black Cherry

[David Peterson]

I recently cut down a stand of Black Cherry trees on my property. These were all pretty young trees, the largest measuring around 3"-5" diameter. The trunks were all pin straight and knot free but I don't know if such small trees would be any good for turning. I'm not a bowl turner but I do enjoy making handles and such for my various chisels along with the occasional spindle for furniture repair. I've cut up and sealed a couple dozen good size pieces as an experiment but I thought one of you could tell me if it's worth the wait to use this stuff.

[John Keeton]

David, you would need to avoid the pith, and you would want to avoid the sapwood for handles. So, with a 5" piece, your usable wood is going to be somewhere around an inch or so, and the grain direction would be such that you may experience a lot of shrinkage and distortion. In any event, I think for chisel handles a harder and more durable wood may be in order.

Just my thoughts.

[David Peterson]

Thanks for the quick reply John. I suspected something like that although I'm pretty new to the idea of working with "wood in the wild" as my lumber source. Pith and sapwood are familiar to me but I need more education about the parts of a tree that are more suitable for woodworking.

I would love to use some of my own trees to start with. Of course I have more mature trees, mostly maple and cherry, but before I get that ambitious I'm gonna need a bigger saw (or, more probably, the phone number of a good lumberjack).

[charlie knighton]

handles and such for my various chisels


try big dogwood