Black walnut ranks third in hardness - about 20% below red oak. Cherry is another 5% or so softer than walnut. Wood hardness is certainly something you'll want to take into consideration as you make your species selection.
The Janka hardness test that ranks the hardness of woods gives cherry a rating of 950, which is a little less than walnut. Walnut wood has a Janka hardness rating of 1010, pulling it out in front of cherry as the stronger wood of the two.
It depends on what you are looking for in terms of strength, durability, and appearance. If you want beautiful wood that is strong and durable, then cherry wood is a great option. But, if you are looking for an easier to work with wood, then walnut might be a better choice.
As mentioned above, cherry is a hardwood, meaning it comes from a deciduous tree (a tree that sheds its leaves each autumn) called the black cherry, AKA American cherry. Its heartwood has a pale salmon color when freshly machined and ages to a beautifully warm reddish brown over time.
Walnut. Walnut is a straight-grained hardwood that ranges from chocolate brown (when it's from the center of the tree) to yellow (from the outer portion of the tree).
Hard fruit- Fruits that have hard outer covering and are dry. Examples: Almonds and walnuts.
John Boos & Co. Deals Primarily in Four Hardwoods
As you can see in the accompanying graph, rock maple is the hardest of these four hardwoods - about 15% harder than red oak, which ranks second. Black walnut ranks third in hardness - about 20% below red oak. Cherry is another 5% or so softer than walnut.
Of the hardwood species used for furniture and carpentry, cherry is one of the softest hardwood species. It has a Janka value of just under 1000, making it much softer than oak, maple, and walnut. In essence, cherry is almost like a very dense softwood, as it has a higher Janka value than pine or cedar.
Both oak and cherry are considered hardwoods. However, oak is much harder, which means it will not dent as easily and is a good choice for households where there is a lot of moving furniture, rowdy kids, or big pets. Cherry, while still hard, is a little softer and may show some denting from these kinds of activities.
Cherry is often rather brittle and the fibers occasionally fracture while the log is still standing. So it came as no surprise as I worked the curly cherry for the April issue project that I came across a rather wide board that was substantially cracked over a great deal of its length.
The lighter hues of new cherry or even ash will complement the richer tones of walnut. Many pieces that we make at Thos. Moser are a great display of this ebb and flow of light and dark. Our chairs use lightly colored ash for the spindles and cherry or walnut as the seat and crest.
If you don't know your woods, you'll have trouble predicting their fate. Fortunately, we can help. For example, experience tells us that walnut and cherry can initially look nice together but won't be a good fit in a few years.
Cherry is a fine, straight-grain hardwood that traditional woodworkers and carpenters have used for many years because of its quality. It provides a moderately hard texture, extreme strength, and good shock resistance. Apart from its durability, cherry wood is also known for its exquisite beauty.
Walnut: I call it a happy medium between Cherry and Maple--it's the "Goldilocks." Very nice on your knife, and it takes a stain well since it is so dark to begin with. Walnut is probably the single most popular wood for us.
Walnut is a tough hardwood of medium density, with moderate bending and crushing strengths, and low stiffness. It has a good steam-bending classification.
What is the hardest wood in North America? Of locally available woods, Black Ironwood is typically the strongest type of wood you can find in America. It's found in Florida and has a 3,660 lbf (16,280 N) Janka rating. Other strong North American woods include species of hickory, maples, oaks, walnuts, and beeches.
Balsa wood: the lightweight among the wood species
With a density of 0.1 to 0.2 g / cm³, balsa is the softest wood in the world. PS rigid foam - which, among other things, is used as foam plastic polystyrene - has a similarly low density.
Brazilian Cherry floors were extremely popular 8 to 10 years, but now these floors have become a bit dated as red floors are out of style, and often don't match the rest of your hardwood flooring.
Maple and Alder are often substituted for Cherry and can be stained to look like Cherry. Hickory heartwood is a straight-grained, coarse-textured wood that varies in color from tan to brownish-red.
With a rating of 1450 on the Janka hardness scale, Maple is one of the hardest species of wood commonly used for flooring. Cherry, on the other hand, is one of the softest hardwoods in the flooring industry, with a Janka rating of 950.
Durability: Cherry hardwood is a moderately durable wood; its heart is very resistant to rot and decay. Strength: Cherry hardwood is also moderately strong and has a medium ability to resist shock loads. Flexibility: It is easy to cut, carve and mould, and is used for many different applications due to its flexibility.
Ash, Maple, and Cherry are more abundant as they grow larger but have highly sought after aesthetics in the grain which make them less expensive than Walnut but more expensive than some hardwoods. Birch is slightly cheaper than all of these because the natural tones in the wood grain are not as even.
Comments: Sometimes called White Walnut, Butternut is indeed closely related to Black Walnut. While the difference is not black and white, the wood of Butternut is considerably lighter-colored than Black Walnut, as well as being very soft and lightweight.
Alder, poplar, red gum, oak, or mahogany can also be stained to resemble walnut. However, no two types of wood are identical. Even if you successfully stain your chosen wood to imitate walnut, the grain and pore structure will vary slightly. If you're looking for wood similar to walnut, acacia is the answer.
Walnut is a softer wood than Maple. The benefit of this is that a knife will be much less likely to dull when using this wood, but there is a tradeoff since the softer wood is easier to scratch or dent.