From my understanding, the cherry wood that is commercially available does not come from fruit bearing trees (ornamental cherry trees?) Fruit cherry of course come from trees that bear fruit. So, from a woodworker’s perspective, what are the differences?
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be www.flairwoodworks.com)
– Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. – Albert Schweitzer
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I always heard that fruit-bearing cherry was the pits. ;-)
Most of the cherry sawed here comes from choke cherry trees, these trees have a small berry about the size of a wild blueberry and are editable. The trees in my yard are 18" in diameter and over 45 feet tall with the first branches coming out at about 10 feet.
Chris,
Commercial cherry is usually sawn from the black cherry (prunus serotina).
These cherries do produce a small, blackish berry cherished by birds and old timers who used to make "cherry bounce" with the fruit.
Commercial fruit bearing cherry trees are different varieties usually grafted onto a strong root stock. These fruit bearing trees are meant to stay in the 10-12 foot range in height to make harvesting the fruit easier. Also, low branching is encouraged to produce more fruit. So, while the wood is still usable in projects, you would normally find the trunks of fruit bearing trees to be almost uselessly small.
Lee
Like the others said the cherry for lumber comes from a type of cherry that is not used for fruit production. For what its worth I took the trunk of a small ornamental cherry tree that my neighbor cut down and sawed it into lumber. I got enough wood to make a small box. The wood worked and looked like cherry I have bought from the hardwood dealer, I just did not get much from the log.
Have fun.
Troy
I've milled up several cherries over the past couple of years. They have all been flowering cherry trees here in Vancouver. I guess they're a third class, different from "timber cherry" and "fruit" cherry?
Anyways, I've noticed that some of these trees are an amazingly dark pink colour, while others are much paler, hardly any colour to them at all. I cut up one that was over 2' across, I thought the whole thing was sapwood, there wasn't even a hint of pink in it!
Dan,Flowering, as in ornamental? Any idea if it was a Japanese ornamental cherry? I've turned some of that and the heartwood matches the colour you describe. The sap wood was more of a soft maple colour.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I have a bunch of fruit cherry also. Cut near Vancouver, WA. Looks like Cherry but doesn't oxidize and get as dark as 'real' Pennsylvania Cherry. Works well an sands and stains just fine. Great for a secondary wood also.
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