Complimentary Wood to Cherry

[alex grams]

I am making a cherry breakfast table and the leg design i want to use has a large curve in it, this leads to a concern that with the weight of the table on the legs, the grain could split. As you can see from the picture, with the curve of the legs, there will not be a single line of grain that runs the entire height of the board.

My solution to make them stronger is to take two pieces of 4/4 cherry, plane them down to about .75" and then take another 1/2" thick piece of solid wood with the grain oriented horizontally (will take some cutting/glueing to make this work well) and sandwich it in between the two pieces of cherry. This will make a nice stripe effect for the legs and feet, and will give me strength along the wood in both grain directions, plus, if my second wood is cheaper, it can save me some money while adding to the project.

My question and dilemma though, is cherry is such a rich colored lumber, i have a hard time thinking anything will match it well unless it were dark wood, walnut or mahogony. Has anyone had any experience with using contrasting wood with cherry, and how did it turn out.

Thanks in advance.

(if this is not the correct forum for the question, i apologize, and please move it).

[Larry Fox]

IMHO, cherry and maple make a wonderful combination. Contrast gets more pronounced as the cherry ages.

[George Bregar]

Like Larry said, although I'm not sure exactly what you are doing. What do you mean by "horizontal" and "in both grain directions".

[Richard M. Wolfe]

The lamination will have only end grain showing. Cutting a pretty sharp curve also shows a lot of end grain. End grain will usually have a much different look when finished (usually much darker), and may take a lot of experimenting with sizing, etc to make a good final look.

[alex grams]

The legs are going to be cut from solid wood, and since they have a curve to them, theywill be curving in and out of the grain so that no single grain line will run the complete height of the leg. With weight distributed on the legs, a single piece could be prone to splitting/shearing along the grain (not likely, but possible). So i Am going to take make the legs from 3 pieces of solid wood, so that the grain in one piece won't align with the others. The middle piece I am going to rotate 90degrees so that its grain runs vertical to the tabletop (perpendicular to the other two outside pieces, similar to plywood layers). This will take some effort to do it, but will give me strength to prevent any cracking in the legs.

Larry, I did think about maple, but that is a very light colored wood. It was my first thought in other woods, but was wanting some others experience/opinions on it.

Hope that helps some in explaining it.

[Phil Mease]

I second the maple/cherry combo. Also, cherry and walnut look quite good but the piece will be much 'darker' overall. Too much richness on a large object can be obtrusive and approach the gaud.

As far as leg strength: have you considered bending the material? At some thickness you will have to laminate them, but you will get a nice consistent edge exposed without worrying about different grains along the visible edge.

Phil

[alex grams]

I have considered laminating them, but that is new to me (and i am going to laminate the curved table skirt as one of my learning projects)

And the maple end grain will end up looking like a cutting board in between the cherry. It isn't necessarily a bad look, but if it isn't what i intended, it could be weird a weird. (i have to think if that is the look i want.)

I think i will consider the laminate option more after i see how well the table skirt turns out. My main concern being the consistent shape of the laminate bent legs.

Not to get off track, but in regards to the laminate bending: IO cut the pieces at about 1/8th, then plane them down some to smooth and even them out. Is this the best way to do it? I am getting some chip out on my pieces when I do this, which I guess is to be expected. Also, my lunch box planer doesn't go down to that small, so I am putting it on another piece of wood as a sled, I assume this is also the best way to do that.

And to think, this was just going to be a simple breakfast table! (but being one of my first major forays into some new techniques, this project has taken on a life of its own)

[Tim Malyszko]

I don't have a solution for your legs, but As others have stated, maple compliments cherry well. Here is a picture of a blanket chest that I built using contrasting cherry and maple.

[George Bregar]

The legs are going to be cut from solid wood, and since they have a curve to them, theywill be curving in and out of the grain so that no single grain line will run the complete height of the leg. With weight distributed on the legs, a single piece could be prone to splitting/shearing along the grain (not likely, but possible). So i Am going to take make the legs from 3 pieces of solid wood, so that the grain in one piece won't align with the others. The middle piece I am going to rotate 90degrees so that its grain runs vertical to the tabletop (perpendicular to the other two outside pieces, similar to plywood layers). This will take some effort to do it, but will give me strength to prevent any cracking in the legs.

Larry, I did think about maple, but that is a very light colored wood. It was my first thought in other woods, but was wanting some others experience/opinions on it.

Hope that helps some in explaining it. Hmmm, the middle section will have to be a glue up, unless you have very wide boards. This will show an end grain glue up in the center of the piece, or you will be glueing to endgrain depending on how you orient it. Neither is a good solution. I would go with solid stock or a bent laminate approach.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Alex, when I said laminations, what I meant were layers. The layers of anything can be considered laminae, like the layers of plywood (or your birthday cake). Thus building the legs of three layers would be laminating the wood. I understand that in most construction it has come to mean a thin material like veneer that can bent or something like a Formica countertop.

[Quinn McCarthy]

maple, walnut and purple heart

Hickory goes well too.

Quinn

[NICK BARBOZA]

I am going to have to jump on the cherry and maple bandwagon. I think that is a match made in heaven.

[alex grams]

Richard, we are talking about the same thing. I was referring to laminate bending of wood, not laminate (a la' veneered top or formica).

I think all things considered now, i am going to do a center piece of maple between two outter edges of cherry, but keep the grains aligned. I want to stay away from the cutting board edge look in the maple, and even with all 3 pieces aligned, it will give much more strength with them glued together, and any natural weaknesses/defects in the wood that could risk splitting will have 2 other pieces along that particular joint that will support the leg.

[Kurt Bird]

Depending on how dark you want to make the cherry, you could turn bloodwood 90 degrees from the cherry to make a deep, dark red stripe in the center of each leg. Check out the photo of a peppermill I made. The sandwiches were made from bloodwood and a maple veneer.
Kurt Bird

[Raul Hernandez]

I think i will consider the laminate option more after i see how well the table skirt turns out. My main concern being the consistent shape of the laminate bent legs.

Not to get off track, but in regards to the laminate bending: IO cut the pieces at about 1/8th, then plane them down some to smooth and even them out. Is this the best way to do it? I am getting some chip out on my pieces when I do this, which I guess is to be expected. Also, my lunch box planer doesn't go down to that small, so I am putting it on another piece of wood as a sled, I assume this is also the best way to do that.

Mark me down for the bent lamination method. I don't know exactly how long the curved sections of the legs are supposed to be, but based on the picture, and espectially if you're concerned about springback, I'd at least consider going down to 3/32". The thinner the laminated pieces, the less likely they'll be to change shape once you take them out of the bending form. It'll take some time to do, and you'll have an awful lot of resawing work on the bandsaw, but if you cut all your strips in one session it won't be too bad.