The Mystery Board Revealed

Remember this mystery board?  I pulled it from the dumpster at the back of the yard while taking photos for our new web site.  It’s been sitting in my shop waiting for an opportunity to be cleaned up.  The first step was to take a stiff bristled brush to the board and clean off the dirt.  Dirt is basically ground up rock and organic material that will kill the edge of your plane blades in  a heartbeat.  If you are really concerned about it, you can spritz the board and wipe it down but I find the vigorous brushing to be plenty sufficient.

I cleaned it up and put plane to wood and voila!  It’s Cherry.  This 4/4, 11 x 62″ board was made a center piece for a recent Hand Tool School lesson and it was great to plane away all the dirt and grime to reveal the beauty beneath. Hand planing Cherry is always a joy and the bench and floor began to fill with Fore plane and jointer plane shavings.

I had my suspicions that it might be Cherry but I didn’t dare to hope as this has to be one of my favorite woods.  Between this and Walnut, the hand tool woodworker can be eternally happy and able to make just about anything in any color.  Thomas Jefferson actually referred to Cherry as “poor man’s Mahogany” and since Mahogany was really the go to wood for most period furniture that should give you an idea of it’s agreeableness.

After planing away the grime, I began to assess the board.  It is an FAS quality board and I cannot see why it was cut off and set aside.  The short length tells me it was most likely cut off from one of our 14 or 16 footers to fill an order for 7-8 lengths.  Unfortunately sometimes these are the sacrifices that have to be made by selling to a wide variety of industries.  Fortunately, I am able to make sure this beauty won’t go to waste.  It will most likely be integrated into my upcoming tool cabinet build.

Hooray for unwanted lumber!