Wood for pegs?

Would cherry be an acceptable wood to use for pegs? I am cutting a frame out of white pine, and would like to use cherry pegs to provide some contrast and highlight the joinery. The plan that I am using calls for oak pegs, but I wasn't sure if this was just the "usual" wood that folks used. Does it have to be oak, or can I use cherry?

Oak pegs are normally used because of their shear strength. Hickory and iron wood are also strong pegs. To use cherry they would have to be strong enough for the joinery, of which I'm not sure, you'd have to calculate the loads for your particular frame joinery.

The strength of pegs in joinery is directly related to the peg specific gravity. A peg that is less dense will be less strong and less stiff than something that is more dense, so cherry would be expected to be less desirable from a strength standpoint.

I used to think that cherry would make a good peg but since tearing into older buildings I am convinced that the harder woods with rot resistance make the best candidates for pegs. It would be tempting to design pegs to the task with medium hardness woods. Increase the common peg radius in .125 in. increments, calculate cross section area and be amazed by a significant gain of fiber and strength.

The problem with that approach lies in the lack of hardness. Pegs are always in the pinch and most every peg in an old building will bear some compression set and very often plastic deformation. In my area I see mostly oak and black locust pegs, my impression is that the harder locust suffers less damage and rot than oak. I would be very concerned that softer wood than oak will suffer compression set from first draw boring and later from load cycling and moisture cycling. Once compression failure occurs the fiber is forever compromised, and a path to progressive failure is opened.

If you want something different than oak or locust try looking for osage orange or persimmon they have dry specific gravities of .85 and .78 and rot resistance to match locust.