does all wood darken?

[David G. Nagel]

JOAT Jack Of All Trades (master of none).

Like me.

Dave N

[rickwb4]

I want to buy a beautiful Queen Anne table that the owner says is cherry. I leaf is clearly darker, presumably because it was stored. I was hoping t o put it in the sun to let it lighten up so it will match. Any thoughts on what I can do to get it to lighten up?

[Doug Miller]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

If the piece really is cherry, that's not going to work the way you think it will: cherry gets darker when it's exposed to sunlight, not lighter. If the leaf that was stored is darker than the rest of the piece which was exposed to light, then it's probably walnut, certainly isn't cherry.

Your first step is to confirm what wood it is. Post a picture on some photo-sharing site so we can all see it.

[Leon]

+1 what Doug said!

[Jack]

Cherry will not get lighter. In fact, now that you mention it, I don't recall ever seeing wood get lighter with exposure to light, usually light wood turns gray, and dark wood get darker. I don't have experience with all 60,000 species of wood, so one can't be sure. My best guess is the leaf was exposed to sun, and the table wasn't. Seems strange as normally it would be the other way around. Possibly the leaf is different wood from the rest.

[Leon]

Walnut absolutely lightens with exposure to light.

[Jack]

I'm sitting here looking at a walnut pencil holder I made 40+ years ago and it's if anything darker than when I made it. How long should I wait for it to get lighter? Same with my cutting boards also 40+ years old, the walnut is definitely not lighter than when made.

It's Pennsylvania walnut though, not Texas walnut. Also not sitting outside in direct sunlight and weather so who knows what that would do? Generally direct sunlight might fade colored wood into grayish, but don't recall any wood getting lighter from exposure.

[Leon]

Indirect sunlight and or a finish can slow the process. You will probably have no issue.

BUT. If you believe anything from the internet or FWW,

Wood that is exposed to a lot of UV will turn grey, even walnut. On its way to turning grey, it lightens. Swingman and our wives were in Arkansas about 10 years ago and were looking for wood. We ran across a guy with a band saw sawmill that was selling fence posts. $4 each IIRC and they were all grey like a typical fence post. They had been stored and dried outside.

These posts were walnut and until he planed the faded side we would never have believed that. We left Arkansas with a pick up load of grey walnut fence posts. $74.

[krw]

You suck!

[Jack]

I was wrong. Walnut does lighten with age. I looked at the bottom of my pencil holder and it is definitely darker than the exposed part. Mea culpa.

[Leon]

No problem Jack, Time plays tricks on everyone's memory. One memory deception that has always confounded me is when I see some thing from my childhood, many years later, is how much smaller it looks now. When I was in elementary school I thought the campus was HUGE.

When I revisited about 40 years later it was tiny. LOL

[Jack]

Took my young son to a couple of fish'n holes I frequented when I was

12... Wow, they were nothing like I remembered, despite nothing at all had actually changed.

The walnut pencil holder I've been looking at every day for 40 years. The slow change was not noticeable to me. It wasn't until I looked at the bottom that the gradual change became sudden. What bothers me is I never thought to look at the bottom until I read the fine woodworking article you referenced and he tipped me off.