Cherry - useful boat wood?

Longliner-

I mean that when exposed to the weather mahogany has a greater propensity to check and develop cracks as it moves than teak.

Dealing right now with an old Halberg Rassy with a split up house- rotten coaming boards that have sections come out like dirt and general destruction of all the mahogany in the structure. Typical neglected wood upper structure- teak has lost some thickness from going 'silver' quite deep- but the mahogany is shot...

Should not have said "bright" when I meant bare.... Yeah many many many beautiful long lived hulls built of mahogany- Still would prefer teak for a coaming board as it better tolerates periods of being left bare.

Keeping to topic- Cherry..... outside....? never.

Funny how there is allways something more to say...

Years back I purchased some wood which had been used to build a pigs corral. The rough 1" planks had stood there nailed to posts for some 150 years. I milled the wood down and had some of the most beautiful cherry and black walnut it has ever been my pleasure to work with. When speaking of the use of woods the application makes some difference to success: It's not like these planks in the pigs corral fell to dust from being outside- there were some foot long checks in the ends of the boards to be sure- but in general these free hanging rough boards faired well and would have lasted perhaps another 100 years sitting in the rain and sun. Take a piece of cherry in another application however and one will be surprised how poorly it may fair: mill out a nice companionway frame and sill from cherry, bond the pieces to a boat with fasteners so the structure is not free to give and it will soon fail.
Your experience may differ but I am too faint of heart to risk the time and effort in novel woods for exterior work.

 

Cherry VS Rot: Update

Well, I'm back In The Woods In Vermont, and cutting back some brush as well as working on the 29 year old wooden/FG boat.

I found a very interesting rot experiment as I was cutting brush. About 8 years ago, the power company came thru part of my property under the power lines and cut all the trees and brush in the right-of-way. They also cut a few larger dead trees that were leaning toward the power lines. One of these was a large Black Cherry. They stacked the cut-down brush and limbs along the sides of the power line. There was a mixture of Maple, Birch, Ash, Hemlock and then the branches of this large Cherry. (I had already pulled the main trunk pieces 5 years ago, and had them sawed for lumber).

So, when I decided, this year, to really clean out the area from the power line to the road, there was this old line of brush and limbs, and I had to pull it all out to a brush pile so I could mow thru that whole area.

Well. There were limbs of from 2 to 5 inches of all the species. 8 years and 8 New England seasons on the ground. The Birch, Maple and Ash were nothing but punk, fell apart in my hands.. But the CHERRY! I pulled out one branch about 8 feet long, and from 4 to 5 inches in diameter. It had some obvious rot about 1 inch deep on the underside against the ground, and about 1/2 inch on the top / wettest portion. But the heartwood was totally solid! I cut it for firewood. The rest was falling-apart punk that went on the brush pile.

Attached is a photo of the end of one of my firewood logs.

As the US Forest Service book says, Cherry has high rot resistance compared to other North American hardwoods...

I'm using two 2 inch thick Cherry sections (cut 5 years ago) to sister two cracked stringers. Epoxy, etc. Covered.

I'm making a Cherry porch railing that will be exposed to weather and sun, and I'll follow those for a few years...

 

Damn, Terry! It was 93 today! What are you doing burning wood? Or do you live in one of those "spots" that always has a breeze?

 

its going to suprise you all to know that most superyachts finishes in the sailing section are in cherry, including the winner of the prestigeous yacht of year Monaco boat show
In my ex, you get less waste, you can get a 3 tonne packet of white oak and much of it is unusable
Cherry has become flavour of the decade with bulk coming into NZ

 

however worm is into oak like fruitcake and the hulls that have lasted have been teak or Honduras mahog, chris craft were all honduras before they got into frozen spit , GRP!
There is no doubt that mahog was the finest and easiest timber to work, you,ve only got to look at the antiques around to see that its duralbilty is beyond question, a timber to rival was NZ KAURI, but its rather plain
the lighter timbers are the rage in many places, birch maple, oak, light in colour I mean,

 

Hey Lazy,

Terry is north of me, and I ran the heater the other morning. Sometimes it is heater in the morn, AC in the eve.

Butter up and cook yourself like a shrimp (on the barbie) down there

Tim

 

Wood, Warmth and Opiniions

Hey Alan, Lazeyjack, Tim ... funny how you get to know a few people around here!

Gas: $3.10 a gallon, unless I want to row. Propane: $2.10 a gallon,,unless I want to take a cold shower and stop cooking. Wood heat is the only place I can make my own value-add. $15 worth of gasoline and oil will help me cut heating equal to $1500 to $2000 worth of heating oil. But I have to think 2 seasons ahead, and like physical labor. After 9 months of sitting on my butt in Africa, with a few runs on the (pedalled) bike thrown in, I NEED some good physical work to get back in shape.

So it makes sense to me, anyway

Lazeyjack, can you point me to more info on the SuperYacht Cherry work?? Is any of it exposed exterior??

It was 38F a few nights ago, here in the Vermont North Woods, and I had the woodstove going. Last night it was (asking my computer...) 64 overnight but it was still 75 at 11PM. 86 high. Summer is coming.

Alan, where are you in Maine??

 

Terry,

Eddington. Tem miles East of Bangor.

A.

 

Alan,

I was in Bangor, early Spring, early morning, roads still snow covered, got slightly stuck in a bus on a residential street.

Good place for Mr. King! It was spooky.

Tim

 

What on Earth were you doing in Bangor, Tim? Between flights?

 

On my way through to Newfoundland & the Labrador Coast. One year I caught the boat out of Portland to Yarmouth, one I took the land route through New Brunswick.

Tim

 

2 weeks of the year i light a gum fire in the house, just to remind myself that fire is facinating and essential to a mans well being,it satisfies some primeval need, like cutting wood, or drinking vodka, or tracking some critter(sans fusil) without gun) dont you start on guns!!
www.alloyachts.co.nz,
whilst in eu this spring I saw a tree that had been down a long while, it looked like at least 7 years to my practised eye! cherry very large and the wood was very sound I stuck my knife into it, to me it looked like it was doing better than the oak around it? I salvalated over this trunk, some dopey bugger had cut it into 5 foot lengths(some brit like Walrus)it would not fit in my backback so its still there
Other than that I am bare chested and barefooted all day

 

Warm-Ness

LazyJack, what latitude are you at??

I'll be at 19 North come August in China, and I don't expect I'll need a fire the coming Winter there, like I do at 44.9 North in Vermont.

...But the water will be warm and I'll be over the side fast, once I get about 2Km from the shore...

 

27degrees south, 60 miles north Brisbane on the coast dunno the long, have no boat at mo, been here 6 years all coffee bars, apartments and flash haircuts,
i usually escape to Siberia, or BC, or somewhere cool in summer, stuck here til boys finish school
You may find humidity there, it's the killer, like here now is abt50--60% humidity and say 80f 26 c, its great, in summer, it is often near 100 and 85% then life is miserable, the swimming pool can sit on 34-35, so no relief, 7 showers a day stuff, we use fans run all night and day

 

Cherry Update

Well, I'm about to sister the front of the main stringers in Expedition (29 year old Clark-Craft Mariner)...

I will epoxy coat the sisters which will be 2 x 5 inch Cherry. Because I have it, and it's probably more rot resistant than the WHITE Oak I originally used...

If it lasts 29 more years + 67 = Age 96 for me I will be OK with that

I'm moving my stash of Maple, Cherry and Birch from the front porch of my Log Cabin to the Barn Loft. Attached are a couple photos of the process, and the selected 2 x 5 Cherry beam...

I have 3 more decent-sized Cherry logs on the wood trailer headed to the sawmill.. They'll be pretty dry by the time I'm 70 or 71.

I'll be putting some Cherry porch railings in the Vermont weather soon; we'll see how they do as BrightWork...

I'll post a photo of the repair work later... I really want to get out on the Lake again...