What am I looking at?

[wdworking]

I I am just now getting to hand plane my 20+ year old Cherry. Attached are a couple pics of what I have. What I am seeing is light and dark areas. Light of course is smooth and the dark is rough. I have gotten past the saw marks. Is the grain changing directions? I don't have a trained eye for this stuff yet.

Can you tell from the pics what's going on?

Thanks,

Craig

[Bob Rozaieski]

Probably grain change. Run your hand over the board in both directions in the light areas and the dark areas. You should be able to feel the direction of the grain, like petting a dog or cat. It will feel smooth when petting the direction that lays the fur down (i.e. head to tail), but will feel rough when petting the direction that lifts the fur (i.e. tail to head). If you have a lot of grain change, you might have to plane across the grain with a very finely set smoothing plane to get the surface tearout free. Once the tearout is removed, a fine card scraper will smooth the board better than a plane. You can control direction and location of material removal easier with a card scraper, so you can scrape in whatever direction the grain dictates.

[Keggers]

I agree with what Bob said. What I'm seeing is quarter sawn cherry. At least the photo on the right is. You probably have some curl in the grain causing the darker areas. It looks to me as if the grain is pretty straight.

[wdworking]

Thanks guys. Yeah, the dark areas are rough. I will give it a try. Does this occur in cherry on a regular basis or just here or there? I like cherry a lot and this is my first attempt in using it.