cherry log question

[nekshot]

My son and I were cutting firewood this morn and a log that did not burn up in the tree top fire 3 years ago caught my attention. It fortunately was laying on a rock and off the ground. I cut a couple cuts and realised this is cherry. So I squared up a piece and it is beautiful. Should yield 2 full gun stocks. I painted both ends and put it in the dry shop area with out heat. This log is 3 years old, how long would you wait to work with it. I don't want it to split or crack.

[nhrifle]

Should be ready to work now, but if there is still bark on it you can do what I do with my bow staves that I make English longbows from. Split it lengthwise (this releases tension in the wood and reduces cracking). Leave the bark where it is and seal the ends with wax or a thick paint. Leave the split areas open. Place in a dry, warm place and allow to stabilize. What is happening is the moisture will wick out of the split area and the ends will not check or split. The slower the drying, the better.

[Reg]

I wouldn't work it just yet. I generally try to allow at least 5 or more years after the blank is cut to rough blank form. You want the ends well sealed with either a very heavy and think paint or better yet, epoxy.
Did some cherry about 6 years ago in SE Kansas and made up the first two piece set last year.
Very , very nice wood to work. Not a lot of figure but a fantastic color and with sharp tools works almost as clean as a slightly hard claro.
Did get one Kentucky length blank off the tree we cut down that has a full feather across the butt, since it is such a screamer am giving it extra time to dry. Seven years should be about right.
Patience, patience !!!!

[nekshot]

This tree was timbered 3 or 4 years ago and this log was pushed unto the burn pile but only the bark burned off, the log is slightly charred on one side. How is that for a wood kiln! Also it was sticking up in the air, so my only concern now is the snow and rains we have been having recently. I am exercising restraint to wait to cut out the blanks. It has a beautiful wave in the grain to flow from stock to barrel. I also think it would be neat this fall to harvest a deer from a stand 20 yards away from the old burn pile my son has using a gun stocked from this burn pile.

[texassako]

The general rule of thumb is a year per inch in board form, and that is just to your local relative humidity. I would cut the blank sooner than later and not leave it in log form. Sawmillers don't really like the idea of 'seasoning' in log form for a reason since it is harder to cut and still going to be to wet to use. Paint does not seal the end since it does not seal the end grain. I use Anchorseal, but some tumble lubes sure seems similar with some mixes.

[nekshot]

Ok, I think I will give it a couple weeks to acclimate and slice it and live with the results. After all it was free.

[texassako]

How big is it and how will you cut it(tool)? Sawdust is as addictive as molten lead, and if you don't watch it you will be sizing up trees and logs as as potential 'candidates'. My wife finds wandering around looking for cheap lead to be a little more acceptable than pulling into dirty, dusty construction sites to ask for free logs.

[gnoahhh]

Ditto the advice about cutting the blanks out of it now and allowing a few years for it to season. Cut them as thick as you can get away with, 3" is good- you need to be able to square it up after it's done drying (and warping a little). Allowing a year per inch of thickness is about right. If possible stack them indoors. If stacked outdoors in an unheated outbuilding, at least bring them indoors for a year before working them. Put stickers between the blanks so air can circulate completely around them. Don't get in a rush to use them- the last thing you want is for a stock to warp after spending a bazillion hours carving it.

Was this log big enough to cut a 3"x7-8" blank out of it without getting into the pith or sapwood? It takes a cherry tree bigger than most people think to get good clear stock blanks out of it.

[Jeff Michel]

Saw it into blanks, as was pointed out already, an inch a year is a rough rule of thumb, depends where you store it and the humidity. Even if you air dry it, you will still have to run it through a kiln for the best results. There is a lot more trapped moisture in "air dried only" wood than you might think. Ask anyone who has ever built a cabinet or desk with air dried only wood.

[nekshot]

If only I knew how to post pictures I would show the grain to you all. After I squared the log I am left with a piece 4x9x40. The pieces of off fall will yield about 3 stock and forend for 2 pc stocks. My dad was a old benchman is what I heard him called. The word on him was when others could not make it out of wood, they would come to him. His speciality was spiral staircases and extemely difficult handrails, as the one he made for the valley forge military library. That hunk of twisted taffy took him 11 months. So yes I am always looking for wood, it is in the genes but I regretfully do not have his skill level.

[flounderman]

I don't know if all cherry is the same or not but I did a stock of cherry I cut in wisconsin about 50 years ago and said I would never make another cherry stock. I just am finnishing my second one and my opinion of cherry has not changed. It bears no resemblance to claro walnut. I have worked with most of the stock woods and cherry is my least favorite. Th stock did develop some color streaks when I applied the finish and it doesn't look bad but it is a hard wood to work with. The only reason I did the second stock was I didn't recognize what it was until I was well into it. I had bought a remington blank years ago and the wood wasn't identified at the time.
cherry is probably the hardest of the native stock woods. Until the log is cut into flitches or planks it isn't going to dry. cut it, seal the ends and wait.

[Alan in Vermont]

If you only got the one blank you probably have the heart of the tree running through it, lengthwise. That being the case it is going to be VERY hard to keep it from cracking. Thick sections will shrink radially, with the heart of the tree being the center point of that shrinkage. It will want to crack such that the cracks all point to the center, think how a pie is cut to visualize it. I'm not sure you will end up with a stable stock out of that piece. Coat the ends heavily with something inpervious to moisture to force the wood to dry "sideways" instead of lengthwise. Hide the thing somewhere that it is hard to get at so you don't get tempted to mess with it too soon.

[nekshot]

Thanks for all your input. My dad always complained of the 2 different cherry woods. He said there is wild cherry and then he called the other native cherry. I don't remember which he hated but the one he liked was as soft as walnut. He would buy the stuff by the skid loads. This cherry i cut is soft like walnut and boy does it smell good in the fireplace. I do have some of the other cherry here I found in the old chicken house ceiling and it is as hard as rock maple! Some of the boards are 20 inches wide. The grain is totally squirrly and it regretfully has alot of cracks.

[texassako]

I agree that the pith(center heart) needs to come out to prevent checking. Leaving it in can ruin a lot of wood. Those are odd, rectangular dimensions to get from a round tree, maybe you already cut the pith out?

[TreeKiller]

Local man that cuts walnut stock blanks uses bees wax to seal the ends dips them about 3 inches deep on each end.

[geargnasher]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=26691&d=1289283005

Black cherry do make purty gunstocks. It's brittle, loves to split, is often full of bugholes, and the grain goes every which way but the way you think it will and changes direction every inch or two particularly if you get that really beautiful wavy-grained stuff.

The commercial, soft fruit cherrywood that is used for cabinets and furniture is boring and dull by comparison, but much easier to work.

Gear

[gnoahhh]

I built one stock out of cherry- a slim, trim, ML half stock percussion gun (Vincent-style Ohio rifle). It has mellowed to a very pleasing reddish honey brown (as cherry is wont to do). It was a bugger to work with, but I knew that going in, having burned through a few hundred board feet of it doing boat interiors and the like. I swore that was the last time for me, but in all honesty i have grown so fond of that stock that I'm now on the verge of ordering a cherry blank for the custom Krag I'm building (pre-war Griffin&Howe-style).

http://i481.photobucket.com/albums/rr174/gnoahhh/100_0016.jpg

[nekshot]

Very nice wood and the flow with the grain is well done. Good job, and I suppose that is the real hard black cherry wood. It looks like the wood out of our chicken house and I cannot imagine trying to work with that hard stuff!