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cherry

Dave Fritz

Dave Fritz

Joined
Jul 24, 2008
Messages
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Location
Montfort, Wisconsin
The maker of this band bowl gave me permission to show the picture. We're wondering what the dark marks are in this piece of cherry. Many of us have had the same thing happen with cherry wood.

Minerals perhaps?

105cherry2.jpg


Thanks,

Dave F.
 
ray hampton said:
resin channel, I thought that only pine trees was the only trees with resin or is sap and resin the same thing
Click to expand...

Reading the PDF would help you broaden your definition, I'm sure. The southern boys used to chew it, and call it "pine gum", and there are "gum" trees all over the world - not just Australia - which produce viscous liquids which harden and ruin the paint job of many expensive vehicles.
 
MichaelMouse said:
Reading the PDF would help you broaden your definition, I'm sure. The southern boys used to chew it, and call it "pine gum", and there are "gum" trees all over the world - not just Australia - which produce viscous liquids which harden and ruin the paint job of many expensive vehicles.
Click to expand...

thanks , I think that I will sleep on this info.
 
With time, cherry will darken so much that the grain virtually disappears. What you will be left with, is a reddish, darker piece of wood with REALLY dark streaks...the "dark marks" you see. With noticeable grain, it appears as a defect. But with time, it will become the dominant feature. I love cherry (and most fruit woods) for just that reason.
 
I've been roughing and coring some large diameter cherry lately, and I was shocked when I hit a large pocket of that sap just beneath the bark.

At first I thought I hit a frozen ant nest, from all the gooey dark spray that was on the faceshield, tool rest and inside my flute. That pocket was about 3 inches long, and 1-1.5 inches wide. Last night I saw that I missed a chunk in the clean up - still stuck to the wall behind me. Boogers aren't that gross!
 
Sort of like the plasma that oozes before scabbing over an injury, if you like gross terminology. Trees often respond to injury by rushing resin/gum to the area of injury. If it becomes encapsulated before it can cure through and through, it can be a gooey mess.
 
that's the wood that almost burned up my microwave. One of those hidden sap pockets was in the wall and I never new it was there. As I was drying the bowl in the microwave that pocket super heated and burst through the side of the wall scorching the wall and actually started to burn. fortunately I was standing right there and ripped it out of the oven. Did have smoke damage which took a good while to get rid of the smell. Can't imagine what might have happened if I had not been there.
 
They are pitch pockets, and a very common (and characteristic) feature of Black Cherry. Yours are long and thin, while Donna and John encountered unusually large pockets, which were not so pleasant... Typically they are small and not so noticeable but a very common feature of Bl. Cherry wood.

A friend of mine is a fine cabinet maker, who named his business "Pitch Pocket" since he uses so much Cherry.

Safe spinning,

Brad Vietje
Newbury, VT
 
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