Working with Curly Cherry

[Roger Turnbough]

Morning all,

I have done some work with curly soft maple in the past, and frankly, the wood is challenging to say the least, with all the tear out that happens.

What are the working properties of Curly Cherry? Does this wood seem to tear out like the curly maple does, or does it behave more like regular cherry in regards to surface prep and surface quality?

Thanks much guys,

Roger
South of Chicago

[Ken Salisbury]

Morning all,

I have done some work with curly soft maple in the past, and frankly, the wood is challenging to say the least, with all the tear out that happens.

What are the working properties of Curly Cherry? Does this wood seem to tear out like the curly maple does, or does it behave more like regular cherry in regards to surface prep and surface quality?

Thanks much guys,

Roger
South of Chicago

I have used a lot of curly cherry in the past and still have a considerable stock of it. It has been my experience that it tears more than curly maple :(.

I plane it very carefully, taking VERY, VERY light cuts, sometimes even wetting the boards beween each pass through the planer. I plane close (how close dependent on how much tearout) to the desired thickness and finish by using a drum sander & ROS. With care it can sure make some beautiful pieces.


http://www.oldrebelworkshop.com/Hope_Chest.jpg

[Roger Turnbough]

Ken,

That piece is stunning, beautiful figure in the cherry. What kind of finish did you put on this piece?

Roger
South of Chicago

[Russ Massery]

It's been my experience that all the curly woods act the same way. That's one of the reasons for buying an drum sander. I've found that the curly creates a cross grain affect. I've found very light passes on the planer helps too.


Russ

[thomas prevost]

Curly cherry, depending upon the amount of figure can make fantastic table tops or drawer fronts. Cherry is a fairly soft and figured wood tears out easily. Commercial furniture makers will not use highly figured wood because of this.

The guys who buy it from us usually take it down close with a planer and finish with a drum or wide belt sander. They do as little machining as possible, using straight grained wood for cope and styles. For edging , one guy takes it very close with the router going in the standard direction then takes one or two "micro" cuts backwards in the climing direction. VERY Micro and care as the router can come back at you.

These shops also have many scrapers lying around. Question- standard operating or just for difficult woods?

[Jim W. White]

Ken,

Please give us more details on that amazing hope chest. I too would like to know how it was finished.

Did you design it yourself or is there a set of plans I could research? I'd love to see a picture of the inside and what type of hinges you used fo the back...

love it!! more details please!

I have some curly cherry to use and I think my daughter would love something like that.

As to planing this type of hardwood... I've been going the neanderthal route on the fiddleback/curly maple as well as the birds-eye with great results. ...using a LV scraper plane (looks like a Stanley 112) ...I'll do some initial planing with my benchtop Delta to get down close to thickness, but the hand plane is the only way I've found to take it all the way down with no appreciable tear out. The hand-planing also seems to really "pop" the grain.

...Jim in Idaho.

[thomas prevost]

Ken,
WOW!!
Absolutley gorgous wood and look at those absolutely tight odd angle joints. Maybe someday I will get 10% of that kind of skill.

By the way, we haven't heard about how your other problems are coming along in a while(unless I missed it)? I hope your recovery is going smooth and you are back in the shop more.

[Christopher Pine]

IS so nice when I was just thinking about this same thing! Some friends and I about a year ago bought a whole bunk of cherry out of state and had it shipped here. After all was said and done we paid like $3.30 a baord foot. Was excess of 660 board feet.
Anyway I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of curly cherry in my portion.
Here is a picture of one of the boards.
Like many it is just waiting for that right project.
Thanks for the insight!

Chris Pine