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Which is easier for a newbie to work with? I wont get around to it for some time because my wife wants me to build her a bookshelf first, but I have a plan for a mantle clock I would like to make for my grandmother. It calls for cherry but I wondered abotu Walnut. Was not sure if one was better than another to work with wwith my cheap tools.
I use a lot of walnut, and not that much cherry, but about the only differences I've noticed in working with it is cherry has a tendency to burn when cutting, routing, so sharp tools are a must; and walnut is harder to finish if you have a lot of sapwood.
As far matching existing decor, if you want a darker end product, use walnut. Keeps Joat's woodworking gods pacified.
Both are good to use. It doesnt matter what the plans say it matters what you ( or your grandmother) feel looks best. I personally like Cherry better and when it does burn you can sand, scrape or plane the burn marks easily.
Let's propitiate JOAT's gods with the idea, too, that walnut lightens (relatively speaking) over time, while cherry darkens (but you can be talking lots of years before two similar pieces, one of walnut and one of cherry, pass each other on the way up or down. For what's it's worth, I've NEVER seen real cherry, without stain, the color of the furniture sold as cherry "stained" these days. It just never really turns black (well, yeah: in a fire).
I've worked a fair amount with both, tend to prefer cherry (mainly because it used to be cheaper around here than walnut), but agree with Swingman's analysis. One slight addenda: walnut is more of an open-pored wood, so finishes best for most purposes with grain filler before staining (ugh) or coating.
Walnut is easier - softer, doesn't tend to burn like cherry/maple - but not necessarily "better". Personally, it's my favorite wood.
I've used both extensively. Both are relatively easy to work in my opinion. Not as hard as Oak or Ash. I give a slight preference to cherry because the grain is a little tighter on the surface and I prefer the smell over walnut which is a little strong when it is being worked. In the last year I've done a walnut cradle, booster seat, hall table, and end table.
I'm currently working on a cherry china cabinet and side board. In the past I did a cherry bedroom set complete.
Frank
I would concur with this assessment. Walnut is a pleasure to work with hand-tools, in particular. At times, I found myself hand-planing boards just because I could. :) Maybe it's because the shavings looked like chocolate on the floor?
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Both look good when finished. i just hate the mess of working with walnut, but I am speaking more as a turner than doing case work. Even in case work, walnut is "nasty" the dust and shavings stain the hands and anything else they come in contact with. Buuuuttttt, the finished product is worth it.
Personal preference is ash. But each has their own, don't they?
Deb
what ever you do don't go the route a friend used recently
He had a bookcase built from Maple sta> x-no-archive:yes
I have a walnut hall table with a cherry "inlay" I did a few years ago, finished a la Sam Maloof, rubbed oil/poly/wax .. no stain whatsoever.
I planned on watching it to see how long it took for them to swap spectrums.
Thus far the cherry has darkened, almost to the color of the walnut sapwood, and the walnut hasn't budged as far as I can tell. From the looks of it I might have to leave the piece in my will to someone who can finish the test.
Both machine well but I would lean a little toward Walnut. That is probably a personal preference more than anything. It seems like cherry burns a little easier (or at least it shows it more on the lighter wood). In our area, SE KS, Walnut is native and a little cheaper.
BTW, two of my first serious woodworking projects were clocks, one mantel and one long-case schoolhouse clock. Both Walnut.
RonB
So are you saying it was a mistake to use Maple instead of plywood or a mistake to try to stain Maple to look like Cherry? I have a friend that worked in a furniture factory (until it was sent overseas). He said all their "cherry" was really just maple stained like cherry.
why use maple and stain it cherry? It seems silly to me that if your going to the trouble why not use cherry.
he also could have gotten the same effect with a good quality veneered plywood at less cost. > william kossack wrote:
Maybe neither. If you are unsure of your skills and your tools, make a prototype in pine first.
"stryped" wrote in news:1152882464.871531.298730 @p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com:
There isn't really a good answer to this. Both are fairly easy to work, with either hand tools or machines. Cherry is rather more prone to tearout and chipping, and is sometimes weak along the grain, moreso than walnut (so be careful if you've got some detail that involves a bit of short grain). Cherry will burn very readily if you've got a dull router bit or are clumsy with a sander.
Walnut is mildly toxic, and some people are very sensistive to the dust/shavings. You may find you want to wear a dust mask anytime you're working with walnut, which isn't necessary with cherry (unless you're power sanding, spraying finish, etc).
For a very easy to work wood, you might consider mahogany. It would make a very nice looking clock, IMO.
John
I prefer walnut over cherry. I made a cabinet out of cherry and spent a lot of time sanding out the burn marks. Where I live, walnut is less expensive than cherry due to the demand. Don't pass up maple or oak.
Cheap doesn't matter so much...but sharp does. Like many have said, cherry has a strong tendency to burn, so when I saw it I frequently leave an extra 1/16th on it to be taken off with jointer/sander/plane. I've never had a problem burning it with a router, though. I have a variable speed router, and I use it with a relatively faster feed rate and lower RPM. Jointers and planers aren't an issue either.
Walnut is beautiful, but cherry is my favorite. Pound for pound the best character of any wood I've yet used. YMMV.
One other thing with walnut: Around here (SE Michigan) almost all of it has been steam-dried. (If that seems like a contradiction in terms, you'll just have to trust me on this one.) Since walnut has been so badly over-harvested, it's very difficult to find boards of a decent width that don't have sapwood. (They're really cutting some young trees now, and walnut trees by their nature have a lot of sapwood anyway.)
However, in order to attempt to blend walnut's heartwood with its sapwood, they introduce steam into the drying process. This darkens the sapwood to some extent.
It doesn't work very well, and if you take much off the surface of the board you will completely negate the effects of the "blending." The bottom line is that you *think* you're getting a board of uniform color, but once you cut through the surface you'll realize you haven't.
So be careful when you buy walnut, especially if you're not buying S2S. Talk to your dealer and ask if the wood's been steam-dried. (If he doesn't know what you're talking about, get another dealer.) My dealer warned me about it the first time he saw me poking through the walnut bin. He's asked his supplier to knock it off, but they won't.
Cherry, too, has a lot of sapwood, but you can see it a mile away.
I'd strongly agree with that, but only up to a point.
Pine, unless you get a particularly good grade, just isn't a nice timber to work with for fine cabinetry. Softwood is too coarse and flimsy in small sections and it's actually harder to do good fine work in it.
If your skills are moderate and you have affordable timber, then treat yourself to cherry or walnut and enjoy yourself - they're both lovely timbers. If your skills are just begining though, don't risk wasting a nice board - go with something cheaper. But not quite as lowly as pine.
As to which, then I'd probably favour the cherry.
Parana pine (sustainability issues apart) is a nice well-behaved pine to use.
I think this is wrong. If you go in with the attitude that this is just pine, you will not strive hard enough to do a good job. If you do what it takes and it comes out well, you will chide yourself for not using the material that you wanted in the first place. My preference is cherry because I like the way it looks. As others have mentioned it burns, so use sharp tools and a reasonably fast feed rate. I have a Maple clock that included less than $5 worth of wood, so shop around. A picture can be seen at the top of the page:
What is wrong is your attitude. If you go into the project to learn how to make certain joint, to make the perfect fit, the prototype will have served its purpose. Great artists have often made sketches and prototypes before creating the final masterpiece. I have a design in my head of a clock I want to make. So far, I've made two partial prototypes from pine scraps to get a real, hands on, 3D model of the finished product. I'll probably make one more before I get what I want Check the design studios of auto makers. They use clay before going to a metal model.
Perhaps you have all the woodworking skills you will ever need so you have no reason to do a test setup. Good for you, but some of us still like to try things out. Cheaply
Any prototype I've made that came out well was given as a gift and appreciated by the recipient as much as the person that got the final design. Last year I made a series of boxes as gifts. Yes I made two prototypes from pine. One was junk from making adjustments in setups. The other was as good as the cherry and elm boxes that I made. The pine was given to a neighbor and she was just as happy as if it was made of solid gold and filled with cash. I don't see any loss there.
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