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Hi!
I went to a lumberyard today and find nice 4x4 quartersawn lumbers of cherry. I'm not sure about the translation, in french there's a distinction between 2 species, but both of them refer to "cherry" in english. The wood is really light, close to maple on the look and the density. I was wondering if this could be good for necks? Anyone tried?

If somebody speaks french here, i'm talking about "merisier''. Both "cerisier" and "merisier" refer to "cherry" in english.

Thanks!

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Cherry makes a fine neck. There are several luthiers out there who like Cherry better than Mahogany for necks....

What is the french distinction between the two? Is one an Eating cherry and the other a "Wild" cherry or some such? Either are fine in necks.

Personally, I have used Cherry -- it is great for necks... Easy to carve, easy to glue, easy to shape, sand, and finish..... strong.... Comparison wise, It is a bit harder, stiffer, and heavier than good, light Honduras Mahogany...

Thanks

John

Great to hear it! The stuff I saw was beautiful!
About the distinction in french, I don't know, it's just... 2 differents species, 2 different trees. One is refering to a reddish wood (what is wild cherry, I think), and the other one is pretty close to maple.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Here is the French language wiki page for Merisier.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merisier

And the Google translation of that page into English
Link


And the same for Cerisier
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerisier

Google Translation
Link

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Jim Hansen

It looks like my guess was pretty good -- 1 is the Japanese cherry -- Prunus ceresus... both edible and not edible... The surprise to me was that the sour pie cherry Montmorency is listed as one of these...

the 2nd is the well known Prunus avium -- which could be either Wild or Sweet cherry... For example... Ranier and Bing are both these...

Both are excellent guitar woods...

The funny part is that about 20 "Cherry" species are all lumped into Cherry guitar wood.... Which is almost as bad as Oak.... I have a "Cherry" back and sides set that I swear looks like Poplar -- very light and soft..... and I have some cherry that is dark, rich red brown and is much more dense and hard... harder than soft maple...

Then.. to throw a wrench further -- I have a feeling that almost everything in Prunus would make wood that is fine in Musical instruments... if you could get it big enough... Including Plum, Peach, Apricot, Nectarine .... Hog plum, wild bird cherry and all the rest...

Thanks

John

Haven't used any of the million types of cherry for necks, but I LOVE working with it for backs & sides. bends really easily and looks nice in an understated kind of way......

Smells really nice too!

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Yes, cherry (Prunus avium) is one of my favourite neck woods for a stell string. I've used it four times now, and it always gives a neck that adds great neck harmonics. I use cherry for the neck block as well. Nice to work, and gives a good surface for finish. Here's the most recent one.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Colin I love the looks of that guitar. Cherry is great to work with.

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Martin uses it on the the cherry smart wood guitar. Nothing wrong with cherry . I agree with you TruckJohn that cherry can range very wide across the spectrum of hardness and density per species.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

If Martin does..!
Thanks for the reply. That convinced me, I'll ge back to take a few blanks. And about the density, by hand, I would say it similir or a bit more than sugar maple. We use that wood much at school for jigs and stuff like that and it's pretty stable (that's why we use it).

Thanks again!
Francis

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Bob that's some of the Black Limba from your very first offering of it some years ago.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

And if you can find some curly cherry for back and sides. Here is one I built a while back from a tree I cut down to clear a lot for a house. The neck is also curly cherry, along with the head and tail blocks.

Chuck

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I love working with Cherry (Prunus serotina) for necks but there's one potential problem...pitch pockets. On more than one occasion, I've shaped, rasped and filed only to reveal a rather ugly pitch pocket in a critical area. While it may be possible to fill with dust/epoxy filler, it can still be a cosmetic defect...nothing a little sunburst can't conceal at times. And the aging effect results in a pleasant surprise with the passing years.

Each time I can find clear or curly Cherry, I snag it while I can. This is a great wood IMO!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Yup! And, easier to deal with in a guitar back than a neck, as well...
You've got to re-classify pitch pockets from 'defect' to 'added interest'

Cheers
John

Cherry is one of my favorite trees to mill because of the nice smell.This thread makes me want to resaw some sets from my milled stock out back.Think i'll just do that this fall so i can build a guitar out of it next winter as i haven't done one in cherry yet.I have thought of useing it for binding as it would be very durable there.