American cherry (Prunus Serotina of the family Rosaceae) continues to be popular with furniture manufacturers especially in residential furniture, particularly bedroom and dining room pieces.
It is a good domestic cabinet wood due to its warm red tone and dramatic grain cathedrals, plus many consumers ask for it by name. It has become popular wood for kitchen cabinets.
Common names include American black cherry, cabinet cherry, rum cherry, whiskey cherry, wild cherry, Pennsylvania cherry, and mountain black cherry.
American cherry can be finished in a wide range of colors and turns more red with age.
It is easy to machine. It is not particularly easy to bend, and is prone to splitting when steam bent, unlike ash that is more flexible.
Black cherry is widely reported to be the largest of the native cherries and the only native cherry to be considered commercially valuable. Found throughout the United States, cherry’s prime growing areas are Pennsylvania and New York. Its range also includes parts of Canada.
Pennsylvania cherry also has the least amount of pitch pockets. Buyers come from all over the world searching for the color, also called pink salmon. If you go farther North, the cherry is bright pink; farther South, it becomes more orange in tone.
Cherry thrives in full sun, so the long-ago practice of clear cutting forests actually helped the supplies of cherry to grow. It has been a popular fine furniture wood since the early settlers discovered its properties. It is especially prized for its beauty and workability, its fine grain texture, and range of figures, which includes curly cherry.
American cherry grows in the eastern United States and Canada. Its uses include furniture and cabinetmaking, high-end joinery, musical instruments, flooring and boat interiors. It is a favorite for turnery and carving and also is used in pattern making and specialty items.
Processing suggestions and characteristics
Height/weight. Average height is 50 to 100 feet, with average diameters of 1-2 feet. The average weight is 36 pounds per cubic foot, with a specific gravity of 0.58.
Gluing and machining. Cherry works well with both hand and power tools and can be glued without problems. For finishing, cherry does well with a variety of treatments.
Stability. Cherry dries fairly rapidly with little degrade. Use care to avoid shrinkage during seasoning. Cherry shrinks about 3.7% radially as it dries. The wood shrinks about 7.1% tangentally as it dries. The tangental-to-radial shrinkage is 1.9%
Strength. The modulus of rupture is 12,300 psi. Janka hardness rating is 950. The modulus of elasticity is 1.49 million psi. Shear strength is 1,700 psi.
Color and grain. When finished, cherry wood is a beautiful salmon pink to red and its color improves with time.
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