Curly Cherry ?

[Al Willits]

Well she's done it again.....she's changed her mind again from a head board of curly Maple to curly Cherry, Woodcraft (remember her and Woodcraft and a DeWalt planer?) is having a sale on it and she is convinced this is the wood she wants....uh huh...sure....
Anyway..

Seems they're gonna be getting another shipment in soon and Tim the manager will put aside matching boards for me, I'm just wondering how it is to work with?
Anything I might want to know before I start flailing away?

Al....as usual..TIA...:)

[Jamie Buxton]

The good news is that curly cherry is generally easier to plane than curly maple. Really curly maple gets really curly. That is, the wood fiber angles a long way away from the face of the board, so planing it is... um.. challenging. Curly cherry, in my experience, doesn't get quite as curly, so it is easier to plane.

The bad news is that curly cherry is rarer than curly maple, so the price is higher. But if you're only buying a couple of boards, maybe this doesn't matter too much.

[Tim Johnson]

I got some nice curly cherry earlier this summer at Frank Millers in Union City, IN. Nice selection at a decent price, and I think they will ship. When I'm visiting folks in that area, a stop in their outlet store allows me to lighten my wallet a bit. :)

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

Cherry is wonderful to work with and smells good, too. Of course this is from a SPINNY GUY! HeHe:D :D

Bruce;)

[Charlie Plesums]

Cherry is great to work with, but when you first do it, it is so light that you will be tempted to stain it. Don't! Let it sit in the sun, like getting a sun tan, and it will turn a beautiful tan, like it will become eventually anyway.

I wrote a whole web page on how cherry changes color at www.plesums.com/wood/cherry.html (http://www.plesums.com/wood/cherry.html) if you want more info.

[Scott Thornton]

Cherry is one of my favorites.

I will caution you on my past experience, places like Woodcraft and Rockler sell wood at a premium to that you could get at a sawmill. If you have a sawmill locally or close by and I'm guessing you do if you have a Woodcraft in your area, I would suggest going to the sawmill and picking out your own boards, they'll have a better selection and at better prices.

My two cents.

[glenn bradley]

Agreed. My Woodcraft manager is very upfront about them carrying wood as 'a convenience' and admits that for a full blown project you would be better off at the mill. If you need that one piece and don't want to wait or travel; they're your guy.

[Chris Barton]

I have worked a lot of currly cherry and you can see a project of mine by going here:

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=37535&highlight=federal

I usually pay about the same for curly cherry as curly maple but, I get it from Steve Wall Lumber in Mayodan, NC direct. Currly cherry is a pleasure to work with.

[Al Willits]

Thanks all, I agree Woodcraft usually is a bit high on their wood, unless its on sale, which this stuff is, $6 something a bf, and I'm having a hard time finding anyplace that has prices listed locally, but it seems like a fair price.
Considering I shouldn't need to much of it, it might be easier that on-line

I'll check out the reccomended web sites also.

Trying to keep to much fustration out of the learning curve here, thanks.

Al

[John Stevens]

Hi, Al. I've read that curly cherry has a tendency to tear out badly. I ran mine through a Ridgid lunchbox planer with fresh, sharp knives, so I got virtually no tearout. Hope yours will behave as nicely.

[Rob Diz]

If you can get consistent curly cherry (a good pattern throughout the board) for $6 a bf at Woodcraft, you are doing quite well. I pay around $2-3 bf for cherry locally, and more depending on if it is curly. I had two bookmatched quilted cherry boards that were both over 10 inches wide and about 7 feet long- I paid a premium, around $9 a bf, but they made an absolutely beautiful tabletop.

Remember that it will take the cherry some time to get it's color. A few months back, there was an article in FWW comparing the different options. They came to the conclusion that garnet shellac with a topcoat of Waterlox (if desired) produced the best color/cayotence (I know I didn't spell that one correctly). Recently, I have been skipping the BLO in my cherry projects, and find that the figure in the wood is "crisper". the wood with the BLO can sometimes look just a touch muddy.

Don't get me wrong, cherry is still my favorite wood. Just think hard about your finish, and please don't use a stain or dye. You will regret it unless your customer has very strong expectations and is willing to give up some of the wood's beauty.

[Scott Henderson]

This tabletop had some wild grain direction changes, but there is not a tearout on it:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y164/bonely/IMG_1787.jpg

[Al Willits]

"""""""
Don't get me wrong, cherry is still my favorite wood. Just think hard about your finish, and please don't use a stain or dye. You will regret it unless your customer has very strong expectations and is willing to give up some of the wood's beauty.
"""""""

My customer is the worst of them all....the wife...:)
Remember I a newbie at this, so I won't be getting to fancy.
Luckily she wants a pretty plain headboard, so I'm hoping to find plans for one she likes and use them as a starting point.

I wonder how Watco natural and water based poly would work?

Ron the coatings you suggested, can they be applied with out a spray gun??

Also I have a brand new planer...er...actually I have two brand new planers (inserting minor gloat) so hopefully I'll be able to get the wood planed with out to much problems. :)

Al
Al

[John Stevens]

Recently, I have been skipping the BLO in my cherry projects, and find that the figure in the wood is "crisper". the wood with the BLO can sometimes look just a touch muddy.

Thanks for the tip--I'll have to try that on a test piece. When I made the curly cherry door for my aduio cabinet, I made test pieces with BLO as well as the dyeing & sanding method recommended for curly maple, but I found that the figure was kinda muddy with those methods. Went with shellac over BLO, but never tried shellac alone.

After having tried various methods of "popping" the figure in maple with dye and BLO, I'm starting to prefer the look of plain shellac. It's more subtle, but it retains a "shimmer" that seems to get lost when oil or dye is applied. I'd enjoy hearing others' comments on how to bring out the curl in cherry.

[Jim Becker]

Just be sure to really look at that material before plunking your money down...you want to be sure it really "is" curly and curly all over, not just on the back left corner of each board... ;) ...the first step in finishing is choosing the material to build with. Mediocre material will not provide outstanding results.

[Donnie Raines]

Also, there is a differance between curly cherry and flame cherry. Curly cherry actually has a blotchy apperance to it. With darker patches here and there on the face of the board. Flame(which Scott displayed(light figure as well)) cherry is the mire figured of the two. Flame cherry will have large bands(ropes) running across the entire surface of the board. Flame cherry can get rather pricey..but it is worht the added cost.


The drawers on this item are made of flame cherry:

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i11/curlylog/Mvc-566.jpg

[Al Willits]

I sure like the flame cherry, thanks I'll show the wife and see what she says.
Also I'll make sure the boards are close in appearance, the manager has been pretty straight with me so far in our dealings, so I trust him.
The wife will get final say on the boards so we'll see what happens.

Al