I’m planning a winter project of a set of dining chairs in cherry to match an existing table. The wife bought oak and they look horrid.
Anyway, I recently finished a couple of first-time projects in cherry. It seems to me that this wood is awfully weak and may not be a good choice for chairs that get a lot of stress. Am I right in this assessment?
I do have some dark wood ash that is quite similar in color that would certainly be strong enough, but won’t yield a grain match. Is their any other reasonably priced wood that is similar in appearance to cherry that I could use?
Dave of Fla.
Replies
Dave, you're right in thinking that cherry is borderline soft for high stress furniture applications. With an average spectific gravity of only 0.47, it falls midway between genuine mahogany and walnut in terms of density...but what is perhaps more important is that cherry is a rather brittle wood with poor elasticity. It has nowhere near the shock resistance that walnut has. You could bulk up on the dimensions of the stock you use and at least partially compensate for this drawback, but it will affect the appearance of the chairs...maybe making them look a little clunky.
As for substitutes, jatoba (AKA "Brazilian cherry") is now readily available and it has a cherry-like color. It's an extremely strong wood and, given recent price increases on out native cherry, the cost of switching to jatoba wouldn't result in that much of a premium. There are some other imports you could consider, for example there's a species of Nothofagus (a relative of beech native to Chile) that is similar to cherry in color. It's become increasingly more available on the international market over the past decade or so, but it still might take some searching to find a local source...I think, all things considered, jatoba is probably your best bet, if strength is a key requirement.
Edited 8/17/2002 9:07:53 AM ET by Jon Arno
Thanks everyone for your answers.
I don't know how it happens, but 2 days after posting this ended up in archives#?!
Anyway, since I haven't stained a piece of wood since Chris Craft stopped building mahogany boats, I think I'll give the cherry a try but I'll still be leery of it. I curently have oak chairs and they are uglier than sin. Since I'm not designing for the Smithsonian, I can thicken up the joint area only without making it overall "stocky" looking. Singh has a good point about the rear M&T's.When the going gets tough . . . it's tough going!
Ethan Allan and other high quality furniture manufactures utilize cherry in their higher priced lines with a very generous warranty.
It is unlikely such manufactures would build cherry chairs - as Ethan Allan does in their Queen Ann line, then warrant it - if cherry was an undesireable wood.
I have used cherry in various applications (not including chairs) and found it emminitely satisfactory.
Hi, none , here,is my 2cent opinion ,natural maple is plenty strong for making chairs , it dosent have the open grain like oak or ash. its affordable,and as for color, use some analine dye stain to get the cherry color ,your looking for. best of luck.
Cherry may be too brittle for some high shock chair parts, but here's my experience (for what it's worth): In making my first chair, I turned a number of very thin (1/2-5/8" over up to 22" in length) cherry spindles that had been cut from the same tight grained stock. The turning went fine on this stuff, even the long pieces. However, I screwed up on either the figuring for how much wood I would need or on the cutting to length (I forget which mistake I made- it may have been both), I ended up one turning blank short with all the other spindles made, and therefore I had to find new stock. Well, I found some pieces that had wider grain, and I tried turning them. Man, was I doomed to failure. I snapped 3 of these blanks on the lathe, just as I was nearing completion, each time. Finally, I made another blank out of tighter-grained wood, and turned it successfully to make the final spindle. The moral: If you're going to use cherry (which I would recommend), use wood that's as tight grained as possible.
Good luck,
Tim
Tim, I think there's another hidden moral to your story: When buying cherry for a project, always buy more than you think you'll need. This is one of the most variable of all the major cabinet woods (especially in terms of color)...so you never want to be caught trying to match stock half way through a project.
Cherry(s) in general might be a bit brittle as compared to other timbers such as oak, ash, walnut, mahogany, etc., but given aesthetic considerations it's really quite hard to design and make a functioning item like a chair (or any other piece of furniture for that matter) out of cherry that is so slim and delicate that the brittleness becomes a problem-- but not impossible. Those old fashioned M&T's at the side rail to rear leg really are pretty tough, and it's very difficult and pretensious to design a chair where that joint is so slim that it 'looks' 'too weak'. Old maxim--'If it looks wrong, it probably is wrong.' Slainte, RJ.
The basis for my concern was that I just made a spice cabinet with cherry and as I was doing some finishing touches with a plane, the clamps let go and it fell on the floor. The wood at every single joint broke away. I used biscuits on 45 miters, certainly not the strongest method, but I was shocked at how easily the wood broke apart.
I'm wondering would laminating certain parts improve strength with alternation of grain directions? I'm most concerned about that rear leg/back joint. Another possible solution might be to just laminate a scarph at the joint area only. I noticed the three piece lamination on the chair arm to leg connection shown on the back cover of the currrent issue which gave me the idea. I'd sure hate to go to all that trouble and end up with broken chairs. OTOH, it would be real pain laminating 16 legs!
When the going gets tough . . . it's tough going!
Edited 8/22/2002 8:44:59 AM ET by Destin Dave
I haven't seen the chair you mention shown on the back cover of the current FW Destin, so I really can't comment. I can think of more than one possible reason why the joints of your dropped box failed as you seem to describe, apart from the fact that it got a shock, that is.
All I know is that I've made a lot furniture out of cherry, including chairs, and I've never had a problem with joint failure, with the proviso that the joinery be adequate for the job in hand. Certainly, rear leg to side rail joints need to be strong in a traditionally configured chair, but that applies to ash, oak, mahogany, cherry, etc.. I might have said it earlier in this thread, so bear with the repetition, but if it looks too flimsy, it probably is. Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture
Splines( buiscuits) should be for alignment only. They are not structural.
My church has all the chairs and pews made of cherry. They get alot of use and none that I know of have failed.
Frank
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