Cherry
Cherry never really goes out of style — it just steps back while other woods take their turn. A decade ago it was everywhere in my shop, and even though I don’t see it as often now, it’s still one of the most reliable, beautiful hardwoods you can put a blade to. This is a look at the tree behind the boards, and why cherry deserves every bit of the respect it gets.
Estimated reading time: 3.5–4 minutes.
Going back about a decade or so, cherry was the boss. Every other job seemed to be cherry, and it was a nice wood to cut and mill. The routers, planer, and table saw would rip straight lines through that warm whiskey‑coloured stock without complaint. The sweet almond scent that comes off fresh shavings is unforgettable. It’s been a while since I’ve worked with cherry, and sometimes I catch myself wishing a designer would spec it again, or a client would commission a cherry table just so I could cut into it. These days it’s usually walnut ,maple or red oak. That’s just the way it goes, but it doesn’t devalue cherry. It’s still an uptown wood choice — sleek sheen, deep tones, and a colour that only gets better with age.
Cherry drifts in and out of fashion — designers chase their colours like seasons — but the wood itself never changes. It’s the same tree, the same scent, the same warm glow waiting under the blade.
Working with cherry has its challenges, though. Something this nice deserves a bit of understanding. Like all the woods I write about, I like to look at the tree first — how it grew, how it survived. Wood isn’t manufactured. It’s a living thing that had a life before it ever reached the mill.
The tree is called Black Cherry. Yes, it grows cherries, but not the ones we buy at the store. Those come from a different relative. Black cherry is a pioneer species. It spreads into open areas, grows fast when it’s young, and loves sun and moist soil. It’s not a big fan of drought or insects. In the tough years — dry summers, bug pressure, sudden cold snaps — the tree slows down. Growth rings tighten. The wood gets denser. And the tree produces gum to seal wounds and keep itself alive. Good years are the opposite: rain, sun, no pests. The tree surges upward again, laying down wider earlywood with thinner walls and fewer extractives.
This cycle repeats for decades. Good years, bad years, fast rings, slow rings, gum pockets from stress. By the time the tree is harvested — forty, sixty years in — all of that history is locked inside the trunk. At the mill, the saw cuts straight through those years, exposing grain that will make beautiful cabinetry and furniture. Cherry cuts clean and sands smooth, but this is also where the tree’s past shows up. The density shifts between earlywood and latewood, the gum pockets from stress years — all of it affects how the wood absorbs stain. That’s why cherry blotches. Not “maybe.” It will. It’s just the nature of the tree. A quick pass with wood conditioner keeps it in line — nothing fancy, just enough to even out what the tree lived through.
Cherry also carries a lot of tannin. That’s its chemical defense against bugs and fungi, and it’s the reason cherry darkens in sunlight. The heartwood deepens and warms over time, aging into a colour you can’t fake. Sapwood, on the other hand, stays pale. That contrast only grows with age, so woodworkers have to be careful how they store cherry, especially veneers. You don’t want boards pre‑aging in the shop. Everything should start fresh and darken together in its final home.
Cherry’s cell walls are thin — part of its pioneer strategy to grow fast and beat other trees to the sky. Combine that with its closed grain, and the wood burns easily. Don’t linger with a router bit or a jointer. Cherry will tell on you. That thin‑walled cell structure also means cherry suffers from clamp denting more than other woods.
Cherry heartwood holds that deep whiskey colour I mentioned earlier, and it only gets richer with time. The sapwood has a stark contrast to the heartwood, and it doesn’t deepen at all — that sharp divide will only get stronger as the heartwood ages. The tree carries two to three inches of sapwood all around the trunk. This is the living wood, the part that moves water to the leaves. The leaves, through photosynthesis, create the nutrients the tree needs, and those move down through the cambium just behind the bark. That’s how the tree feeds new growth. The heartwood is essentially dead — it supports the tree, but it doesn’t move water. In the shop, unless sapwood is part of the design, we cut it out in favour of the heartwood.
I’d like to order a pile of cherry boards and fill my shop with the sweet smell of it again. Fine dust drifting through late‑afternoon sunbeams from the open door. I just need the right uptown job.
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Written by David Flather, Red Seal cabinetmaker and founder of Knotty Dave’s Fine Woodworking — a Manitoba shop rooted in heritage restoration, storytelling, and real craft.
Related story: Understanding Wood, White Oak
All photos shot by David Flather — in the shop, on the road, and in the places where craft and story meet.
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