Is this cherry spalted?

[Michael Dunn]

Hey guys,

I just milled into some Cherry for a project I'm building. Is this considered spalting? The black marks aren't voids... Yet, maybe they will be after another pass on the jointer.

[Barry Mabery]

Looks like darker heartwood grain and pitch pockets to me.
Barry

[Michael Dunn]

Should I be concerned about gluing this edge to edge with other boards that are not like this? Or is this just an aesthetic issue?

[Todd Burch]

Just aesthetic.

[Lee Schierer]

Those are pitch pockets and they do not affect the integrity of the wood, just the aesthetics. Just so you know, that piece is mostly sap wood which will not darken with age. The edge areas will remain much lighter than the center area of that board.

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

Mike, the dark pitch marks will not affect strength but it will certainly stand out aesthetically. More importantly, I would not include any of the sapwood in your glueups. Like others have mentioned, the sapwood remains the same color as it is now but the darker heartwood will develop a rich reddish patina in about 6 months and will continue to darken with age making the sapwood stand out even more.
On the board that is pictured, the sapwood directly right and left of the dark pitch streaks you should knock off. IMHO, you only have what looks like 3-4 in wide of usable cherry. A lot of waste in cherry, keep this in mind when choosing your boards at the lumber yard.

[Peter Quinn]

The beauty of cherry is you can be on your last pass through a machine on a job that requires absolute clear face, or all the other stock is very clear, and a nasty little pitch pocket can appear from no where. I always figure a slightly higher percentage waste on cherry, its a craps shoot. You could argue those are beauty marks……but nobody will believe you! One of the coolest tables I've seen locally was a dining room slab farmhouse type table, basic tapered legs and apron type thing, but the top was a book matched pair of cherry slabs, live edge, with the sap left on both edges, so glued up to form a white wavy stripe up the middle of a 42" table. The heart wood was a rich reddish orange from oil finish and time in a window, the sap stayed very white by contrast. So IMO sap isn't always a looser on cherry depending on style, though that particular ratio of sap to heart pictured suggest firewood more than cabinet wood to me.

[Dave Zellers]

The beauty of cherry is you can be on your last pass through a machine on a job that requires absolute clear face, or all the other stock is very clear, and a nasty little pitch pocket can appear from no where.

Funny! The beauty of cherry... Ya gotta pay for the privilege of working with that wood.

...though that particular ratio of sap to heart pictured suggest firewood more than cabinet wood to me.

What struck me about that board was that the sap wood was better looking than the heart wood. I might be inclined to cut 3" off each edge and use that first.

But firewood for the middle??? GASP! Each board in my lumber pile is like my children. Each unique and full of potential.



Aaaaaaaaaccckkk! It must be Christmas time. I even gagged at that one.

Trust me, I heat my shop with a wood stove. If a board misbehaves, INTO THE FIRE!