Cherry (Black)

Family

Wood

Category

wood

Species

Prunus serotina

Density

0.56 g/cm³ · 560 kg/m³

Species measured

Black cherry (Prunus serotina)

Specific gravity

0.5

Janka side hardness

950 lbf · 4,226 N

Modulus of rupture

12,300 psi · 84.8 MPa

Modulus of elasticity

1.49 ×10⁶ psi · 10.27 GPa

Shrinkage, green to oven-dry

3.7% radial · 7.1% tangential · 11.5% volumetric

Source: USDA Forest Service, Wood Handbook — Wood as an Engineering Material (FPL-GTR-190, 2010), Table 5–3b, for clear straight-grained specimens at 12% moisture content. The grey figures are converted at 1 lbf = 4.448 N, 1 psi = 6.895 kPa and 1 GPa = 145,038 psi; the inch-pound numbers are the published ones. Specific gravity is oven-dry mass over volume at 12% moisture content, so it sits about 12% below the working density at the top of this page (0.5 × 1.12 ≈ 0.56 g/cm³). The two come from different sampling programmes, so a few species differ by more than that.

Origin

Eastern North America

Appearance

Light pinkish-brown when fresh, darkening to deep reddish-brown with exposure to light; fine straight grain

Working

Machines and finishes easily, but scorches under a dull cutter.

Unlike the USDA figures above, these lines are not measurements: they carry no units and no single source. They describe how the timber is generally found to behave rather than what it is guaranteed to do — read them as the consensus of the trade, not as a specification.

• Density is for air-dried stock at about 12% moisture content
• Colour deepens markedly over the first year of exposure to light

Dressed sizes are the same for every species — a 2x4 is 1-1/2 x 3-1/2 in in oak as much as in spruce. What changes is the weight, and that is derived here from cherry (black)'s density of 0.56 g/cm³.

Which tools work a material is a property of the family (Wood), not of the individual species — so this list is the same on every wood page, and changes when the tool data changes rather than when this paragraph does.