I’ve got an opportunity to harvest a couple of cherry fruit trees from a fellow’s yard and wonder if I should mill what lumber I can from them or just cut it all up into firewood?
One tree has a large trunk on it that I can get about four or five foot lenghts from and I have a friend that has a mill who will cut it for me.
I’ve never worked with fruit wood before and wonder what it’s like.
Also, I’ve heard that it might be good for turning. Is that true? I don’t have a lathe but wouldn’t want to waste it if someone else could use it.
Replies
Go for it. I have done the same and gotten some pretty good lumber out of it. You will need to stack and sticker it to let it dry. Generally about a year per inch of thickness of the boards. Cherry is some great wood to work with and at the very least if it doesn't turn out you can use it for firewood. Your friend with the mill can probably give you the basics on drying it but if you want any more info on that there has been lots of it here in the past. I would be happy to post pics of my piles to show you what I have done.
Good luck
Andy
"It seemed like a good idea at the time"
Thanks everyone for the info. I'll bring the trees down and have them milled. Hopefully there is some good wood there.
Be sure to paint the ends of the lumber or it'll split up pretty bad.
Cherry wood from fruit trees is different than cherry wood from forest trees.
MPHarper
I occasionally rescue some pieces of downed furit trees in order to salvage a bit of usable wood. because of their small size, there's usually only small peices that are actually usable.
Like the other post said, the furniture wood known as cherry is "wild cherry" (prunus virginianus?) is different from the orchard fruit tree. The fruit tree it sounds like your working with has different properties, most importantly stability. It would still be worht keeping if you have time to work with it , but probably end up with peices usable only for smaller projects. BTW, I saw this week in my local gorcery store, a 2 pound bag of cherry wood chunks (for smoking) selling for $6. Hmmm.
I have not used wood from Cherry trees but the wood from Apricot trees is suprisingly pretty. Lots more color and figure than one would think. The wood does have a tendency to twist and warp a little while drying. Be sure to sticker it, so it will dry evenly and seal the ends of the boards to prevent splitting.
Michael
Michael Burton
Thunderbird Hardwoods
KD Mesquite
Llano, TX
Hi MP, cherry is great wood. By all means use it. Get a band saw mill guy to cut it and you might cut some in 4/4 and 8/4 even 12/4 for turning. I turn cherry green. Makes nice bowls. Wood from the crotch area has the most interesting grain but is not good for planks because of distortion.
Two other nice species are plum and Bradford pear (ornamental.) The plum I have used was about 10 inches dia on the butt end and about 5 feet long. Probably is similar to apricot. I've heard peach is similar to plum.
Bradfprd pear is a fast-growing ornamental. I have seen storm downed trees (southeast US) about 18 inches at the butt end. Length of usable wood is dependant on prunung. It is a very stable wood and has a nice figure eventhough it has a half inch annual ring spread.
HarryD
When drying follow the advice given here but don't use wieghts to keep the wood from warping.. too often it results in dirt and debris ground into the wood which plays heck with blades.. instead use those ratchting straps they sell. I always buy cheap ones since the straps sometimes sit out for years before I bring them in and they can get all rusty..
Use the straps directly over the stickers, and tighten them every week for the first month and every month for the first year..
I made a coffee table once from a cherry fruit tree. Also have made stuff from apple and crab apple trees. The cherry is beautiful and fun to work with. Keep all the dust and shavings if you have a wood burning stove. Sprinkle some of the saw dust or shavings on top of the stove occasionally.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
I never knew about the "forest cherry" source for cherry wood. Is it a fruit bearing tree?
FWW had an article on cherry sometime in recent memory. Check the magazine index for it. I remember the article and my surprise to learn that "cherry" wood does not come from the fruit tree.
Boardman,
The "black cherry" that the commercially harvested species bears, is only attractive to birds, for food.
Regards,
Ray
Thanks for the info. Learn something new every day....
There are important differences between forest cherry logs and logs cut from the space between the ground and the first big crotches on orchard trees. All of the differences point to short boards or turning blanks, but the wood itself can have other characteristics, mostly good, like these:
The wood is under stress and bending since it is rarely vertical and the fruit trees branches speard pretty low to the ground yeilding grain that shifts direction often - otherwise known as figure. Sometimes gorgeous figure.
Secondly, the tree is being removed because it lost the race for life and some bacterial or fungal infection killed it. That means mineral and fungal streaks - streaks in black and even white that can be truely spectacular.
The wood is good for small turnings, veneered panels with one short dimension, and small boards for objects like small boxes.
By all means, cut it up. Use your chain saw, quarter or half the logs right away and seal the ends with green wood sealer before the saw stops running. Use a jointer or a scrub plane to get a flat side, snap a line on the side of the chunk opposite the flattened side, and bandsaw to that line. When you've got two fairly good flats at 90 degrees, use your bandsaw fence to cut boards, at least 50% thicker than you'll want to use.
Sticker it, stack it, put it in a cool place out of the rain, and let it dry. Put it inside the shop or the house for storage after about 60% of the water is gone; all winter here in the great central valley of the grand state of confusion, or one month in the summer. You'll have to use some judgement. Make sure the initial drying is slow and even.
Inside, keep it stickered in a relatively still area for another few months to years. The rule of thumb is one inch per year, but it varies incredibly with climate and season. The best place to age wood is where it will live as products later, you can't do that for commercial stuff, but some wood can be stickered under your beds or somewhere else you're partner will agree too, but finishing the storage outside in a warmer location is ok if not too hot and dry if the wood is mostly dry. I've used the rafters in my garage. Now, the wood goes into the barn stickered in the fall and comes out a year or more later.
I have some walnut 6" slabs that've been traveling with me for 17 years! May not be able to use them at all without risk of anaphlaxis, I'll post about that later when I have some idea what's going on.
All I know about fruit trees comes from cutting old apple treesfor firewood. It twists and bends all over the place. No idea whether cherry does the same. As others have said, the cherry from a fruit tree isn't what you get at the lumberyard.
I've used some of the cuts from our Montmorency cherry tree out back for turning, it does nicely. Smaller clippings do great on the grill.Leon Jester
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