• January Turning Challenge: Thin-Stemmed Something! (click here for details)
  • Conversations are now Direct Messages (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to John Lucas for "Lost and Found" being selected as Turning of the Week for January 13, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Amur Cherry

Ihad that problem with flowering chery so I wet turned it and put it in 50 50 dish wash and water for 2 weeks then take it out to dry on a rack away from too much light to dry dosent take long turned rough to about 15mm about 2-3weeks .Google Ron Kent it is a good site on this,
 
a/k/a "Chokecherry"

Syd Sellers said:
I just got home with a truck load of Amur Cherry, green and checking rapidly. Has anyone ever tried turning this species of cherry??
Click to expand...

It's a fast grower, used most often as a landscaper's tree; showy bark in my area. Translates as lots of compression wood and check-prone. Got some when a neighbor took one out. Turned like other cherry, but some of the roughs had checks so big that I didn't bother finish turning them. Gave the neighbor a thank you salad bowl (pic) and most of the rest went to the burn stack. Wouldn't bother with it again. YMMV😉

PS: Pictures can be misleading as the attached image is of a 13" diameter bowl.
 

Attachments

  • Rizzo-1.jpg
    Rizzo-1.jpg
    25.1 KB · Views: 131
Last edited:
Jerry Bowl

Mark Mandell said:
It's a fast grower, used most often as a landscaper's tree; showy bark in my area. Translates as lots of compression wood and check-prone. Got some when a neighbor took one out. Turned like other cherry, but some of the roughs had checks so big that I didn't bother finish turning them. Gave the neighbor a thank you salad bowl (pic) and most of the rest went to the burn stack. Wouldn't bother with it again. YMMV😉

PS: Pictures can be misleading as the attached image is of a 13" diameter bowl.
Click to expand...

After seeing your beautiful and large bowl, I spent the day cutting this pile of logs up into something useful I hope....

I have a number of great looking crotch blocks, so I hope to be able to produce a few platters with a great looking center spread.

Thanks Mark.
 
Medical alert

After spending 2 days of bandsawing this pile of Amur Cherry, I had to stop and evaluate my sever stomach and intestinal pain and cramping. I started cutting this wood on Wed., by Thursday night I couldn't take in any longer so I spent Friday out side and away from it completely. Saturday morning almost back to normal. I had no skin contact with any of the sap, so it was from ingestion of a bit of dust and the air in the shop was full of moisture from the drying wood.

Is it worth it??? Time will tell.
 
Amur chokecherry bowls

I just turned (fall up here in October) 6 natural edge Amur chokecherry bowls from a 35 year old cherry grown in Anchorage, Alaska. I will post some picturees in a few weeks so I can report on what is happening.
So far, a week from cutting a wind blown tree, and the next two days turning, I find the wood very unstable, as reported by others. It begins to crack almost immediately. Checks began to occurr as the wood was being turned and excentuated during the drying process (microwave, low power). The thicker pieces experiencing the most pronounced checking in the sap wood. Great contrast between sap wood and heart wood with nice cherry definitions. Hope the wood will stabilize without further checking.
 
City grown tree? When they carry a large branch load, as ornamentals do, they will be full of stresses and nifty grain patterns that a tree from the forest doesn't develop. You've got a more moderate climate than we, tucked up to the inlet as you are, but I don't imagine the variety has gone feral, where you might be able to compare and see if it's the wood or something in the way you work it.

With natural edge stuff I don't bother to re-turn after drying. It's cut at < 3/8 everywhere but the very bottom, and allowed to dry on its own, after, perhaps a bit of air blast to dry the surface so I don't gum up my sandpaper too fast. I go at 120 or 150 in the chuck, depending on which brand I'm using, but no lower until it's dry. Can't remember losing one unless I was leaving the heart in. Ten days is usually enough time in the shop, for final sanding. Hardly worth the color redistribution that sometimes goes with microwaving to hurry them along.
 
Amur cholecherry bowls

Larry Kingry said:
I just turned (fall up here in October) 6 natural edge Amur chokecherry bowls from a 35 year old cherry grown in Anchorage, Alaska. I will post some picturees in a few weeks so I can report on what is happening.
So far, a week from cutting a wind blown tree, and the next two days turning, I find the wood very unstable, as reported by others. It begins to crack almost immediately. Checks began to occurr as the wood was being turned and excentuated during the drying process (microwave, low power). The thicker pieces experiencing the most pronounced checking in the sap wood. Great contrast between sap wood and heart wood with nice cherry definitions. Hope the wood will stabilize without further checking.
Click to expand...

Here are the finished chokecherry bowls. They all turned out except one. While the wood was unstable from the get go, using CA helped stop the checking and after a month no further problems.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3108.jpg
    IMG_3108.jpg
    446.5 KB · Views: 39
Is the bark naturally smooth like that, or did most of the flakes get knocked off? The indigenous cherry(s) have flaky layered bark. Looks like you had fluorescent light, but still looks as if the color is not fully developed.

Bark and daylight, still developing, color of P serotina.
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d160/GoodOnesGone/Cherry-Checks.jpg

Cut heart up with diverging ring figure. HUGE rings in this one, which grew downhill from the barnyard.
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d160/GoodOnesGone/Fast-Cherry-Inside.jpg

The bowl is actually ~14" so it grew rapidly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top