How about cherry?

[Steve Davis]

I have a nice piece of 5/4 slab-cut cherry that is about 8 1/2" wide and 4'long. I was wondering if I cut it in two and laminated it with a piece of maple veneer in between if I could cut a couple of necks out of it. I haven't heard much mention of cherry for this purpose, (or any other purpose in lutherie for that matter.) Is this feasable or would I be better-off buying maple and using the cherry for furniture?

[mrbook]

I have a banjo with a cherry neck that is just fine. Made in 1984, and no problems with the neck.

[Ellie]

I have built a half dozen necks out of cherry, both electric mandothings and guitars. It smells great when you carve it, needs no pore filling and the wood I used has been quite stable.
I'm surprised it's not used more in instrument building. The cherry neck, back and sides acoustics I have built have a tone somewhere between walnut and mahogany. I've been thinking about doing a mandolin out of it.

[sunburst]

I built a cherry F-style in about '92. At the time, it was about the best sounding mandolin I had made. I saw it maybe 5 or so years ago and it was doing fine. I have some nice cherry wood now, and I plan to build some cherry A-styles.

[Big Joe]

We did a Master Model out of cherry a couple years ago. It was beautiful to look at. It does have a different tone, but still quite pleasing. Cherry can be a good wood, but don't expect it to sound like Maple. Many think Maple is a bit more stable than Cherry, but it certainly is good enough for a mandolin I think.

[Frank Ford]

Cherry is a fine attractive wood, and largely overlooked in lutherie these days. My guess is that since it tends to be rather uniform rather than "figured" it was passed by in favor of other, fancier grain woods.

S.S.Stewart and other Philadelphia banjo makers used cherry almost exclusively for necks and those have managed to survive for a bit over a hundred years, so far. . .

[PaulD]

I've seen cherry mandos and they can look sharp. I've never played one. Flatiron had a pancake they called "Cherry", but I think it was maple with a red finish rather than built of cherry wood.

I've used a lot of cherry for furniture and cabinets and I think if you get something with straight grain it should be plenty stable. I would think some of the other fruitwoods would make nice mandos as well; I've worked with apple and apricot and they have great textures.

[Ellie]

The figured cherry I have used seems to be more stable than a lot of the bigleaf figured maple.
I'm really starting to get sick of looking at maple, figured or otherwise, and twice as bored with it in the ubiquitous brownish sunburst, even if it is the only thing people think will sell.

[sunburst]

According to "the numbers" and conventional wisdom, cherry is more stable than maple. It was/is a preferred wood of pattern makers, for patterns that are to be used many times, whereas mahogany was usually used for patterns that were not going to be used many times.
It can have quite a bit of figure. It's usually more of a wavy figure as opposed to the curly figure of maple.

Here's a pic of the one I made. This was a poorly focused 35mm shot that I took a digital picture of. Don't judge my photographic ability by this shot.

[Ellie]

Wowsa! That is a thing of beauty, John.

[PaulD]

That is very nice, John.... I wish you could get some close-up digital pics to share.

Figured cherry usually refers to curly figure, but one of the things I like in cherry are the pin knot clusters that can occur. I have a stash of lumber with these "cat's paws" that I've been saving for someplace that I can show them off... like a table top, door panel, or instrument back. I wouldn't feel comfortable incorporating them into a mando neck, however.

[Steve Davis]

Very nice mandolin John. Is it entirely cherry,or just the back and neck?

[sunburst]

Back, neck, and sides; cherry.
Top; sitka spruce that was almost the same color as the cherry.
Natural finish, to show the wood.

Paul, I don't know where that mandolin is. I can't get any pictures.

[sunburst]

Recognize this young guy?

[Dave Cohen]

Cherry is wonderful wood. The only thing to watch out for is photooxidative darkening. Cherry has wonderful, subtle color when freshly cut, but a cherry object left in direct sunlight can turn very dark after a while. I don't care for the color of sun-darkened cherry.