Pop my cherry

[kansas_volunteer]

Me too. I have a woodsrunner kit with cherry stock. I had wanted to do a little incised carving on it. The book Checkering and Carving Gunstocks says wild cherry carves and and checkers well. In another publication -- the title escapes me -- it says the opposite.

Opinions and experience carving cherry would be appreciated. On my stock the growth rings are fairly close and the percentage of porous spring wood is high. I can see that cutting through alternating hard and soft wood, relatively saying, might make carving risky.

Somewhere here I recently saw a post on a finished rifle, woodsrunner I recall, that had the appearance of being light to medium brown. It lacked the loud red hew other pics of cherry stocks show. It was a more realistic shade in my opinion. Can you link me to posts showing browner and less red stocks? Or, if you have stained your stock a lighter shade let me know your thoughts. I have wanted to let sunshine darken my stock, but what the pics showed was fairly realistic. Well aged cherry wood takes on a dark, reddish brown color, but it shouldn't mimic cherry fruit.

I'm thinking about using a black water based wood filler to highlight the grain pattern. What do you think?

 

[rich pierce]

The one above is fairly red.

The original above is more brown.

This one of mine is fairly brown but reddish tones show up in sunlight.

 

[waksupi]

If you have a stock with soft area, get some Minwax Wood Hardener. Use multiple coats, and definitely do it outside. The product will stain and finish like plain wood. Use VERY sharp chisels.

 

[akroguy]

LMF Cherry stain is great. I add it to my Tried and True oil finish to give a reddish quality to my maple stocks.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Lye is a traditional stain treatment for cherry.

 

[BillyC]

I just started on my SMR in cherry. The wife tells me she liked the first photo, the very red one so if I use red transtint mixed with true oil will that get me there?

 

[Flintandsteel]

Cherry, just like any other wood, can vary from piece to piece. A good dense piece of cherry wil carve and finish well. A soft pithy piece will not.
Heres one from a while back.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

Midwestern grown cherry that I have used is dense and hard. Cherry grown elsewhere , not so much.

 

[LongWalker]

As Flintandsteel wrote, good cherry carves well, the soft and pithy stuff won't--but that holds true for all woods. Most of the cherry I've carved was on cabinets, furniture, and architectural mouldings: stuff where I could select the wood for tight growth rings, straight grain, and (hopefully) matched color when it reacted to light and UV. With gunstocks, the structural requirements for the stock take precedence over other considerations, but you should still be looking for tight growth rings and good density.

I think I've stocked two rifles and a pistol using cherry. All received the usual mouldings on butt and forend, I can't recall any problems there. One of the stocks had some wild grain behind the cheekpiece (worth it though because the grain perfectly flowed from butt to wrist to lock area). I was dreading carving it, but it wasn't too bad. I think that one got incised carving with some light relief carving for accent. The second stock got a little more relief carving, but was a bit more brash through the butt. I got short strings there instead of the shavings I was expecting; it took a little more care to level and smooth the background. In the smaller areas between the carved tendrils I "cheated"and used a stippling tool instead of trying to scrape etc. The pistol was just fun to do, the wood carved beautifully.

Cherry is a closed-grained wood, and doesn't really need a grain filler. Using a black grain filler is a matter of preference; I've always thought it looks tawdry. (Well, you asked.)

 

[Sean E Bug]

I have found cherry to be easy to carve and shape. it works well just like walnut. Keep your tools sharp and watch grain direction when carving. the tool can slip when transitioning from cutting across the grain to with it. I am a fan of letting cherry darken naturally.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

I pulled my 'runner out of the box, and the amount of porous spring wood is much less than I remembered. I realized wood under the side plate would not be seen, so I put a knife to it and made some test cuts. It seemed to carve OK. So, a couple of imagined problems really aren't.

There's more than one way to skin a feline, and I learned there are more ways than using lye to get the same result. I'm going to try a few on test pieces. I'd like to let my cherry age naturaly, but may try a light stain just to hide its nudity.

We have in the family an ancient cherry bedstead that is the color of the third stock rich pierce showed us above. That's where I'd like to see my stock headed. If it turns out in time to show more red that will be OK. I'll not live long enough to see the ultimate result.

I'm approaching this project with patience. There's no hurry to get it done. There are test pieces coming from Kibler. I'll mutilate them before jumping on the kit.