Cherry stock question

[Shawn Henderly]

Hello guys. I have a cherry blank that I cut out 5 years ago for a 48in barrel trade gun. It was air dried for five or six years before it was cut. Well we moved from Ohio to central Maine and in the move three large checks developed in the butt of my blank. The air and sun from it being in the back of my truck did it I guess. Now after a week in my soon to be shop the checks have disappeared. In you fine gents opinion should I just chop it into kindling or try to use it?  Its nothing great just a tree that I cut off my old farm but large cherry doesnt seem to be very common up here.

[Mike Brooks]

Cracks are still there, they just swelled closed. I don't recommend leaving blanks in the sun.

[bob in the woods]

How deep are they ?   Can you salvage the blank by cutting off the checked portion ?   Maybe not usable for your longer barrel, but could maybe take a 42 or 38 inch ?    You could trade it, or use it for pistols .

[Bigmon]

That seems to be the nature of Cherry sometimes.  I have a rifle I finished that was many years air dryed cherry and there were no visible cracks until after the completion.
They are just small checks and seem to be circular in shape like mabe there was a twist or a limb from that area?
I'll try attaching a couple picks here, one showing the patina on the stock when I was starting and the other the finished butt area.  Maybe you can enlarge the pic to see..??
I just fill it with paste wax.  Nothing else I can think to do.?


upload upload

[jerrywh]

The next time the cracks show up put some real thin super glue on them and finish over the spot.  Until then don't worry.  I made a gun once in Western Oregon where there is real high humidity. I put the stock in my car to dry the oil on it and it did the same thing. It had cracks in the butt stock. Very thin ones. I later took the gun to a show and the cracks were gone. I sold the gun to a guy in a different state and the cracks never showed up again till this day. That was 20 years ago.  Don't chop it up.

[Shawn Henderly]

Thank you guys

[Eric Krewson]

I had the same thing happen to a dry osage bow stave. We had a week of bluebird sky, very dry days. I checked on a bow stave that I had propped up by the water heater and found the back riddled with small drying checks. I thought I had ruined my stave, the weather changed back to normal in north Alabama and the checks closed up never to return. I couldn't find them no matter how hard I looked. I made a bow from the stave, it never failed as far as I know.

[GANGGREEN]

Interesting discussion.  I have some curly maple that I took to Dave Keck for two rifles that a friend was building.  The planks were very dry, probably 4-5 years old and low moisture.  When Dave put them on the bandsaw and cut them to shape, they just cracked, some sort of pressure had apparently been released in them.  He put them back for me and I picked them up about a year later.  One of them is showing no cracks whatsoever now and one shows very tiny hairline cracks in a few spots.  It's pretty high grade wood, so I'd love to use them, but obviously don't wish to spend countless hours building a gun that will later show the cracks.  What's really odd about this is the fact that I also used the same wood (or at least wood from the same tree) to build my Kibler SMR and it's just wonderful, no cracks and no issues.  Wood can be weird.