Starting a new project to make a headboard for my bed. Trying to use available stock. Seems I have a slight problem. I don't have enough of any one type of wood to complete the project :) - I have mahogany, oak, walnut , hard maple & cherry.
Anyone have any experience on what combinations of these would look good and not like a patched up kludge? If push comes to shove I can always go buy what I need but I'm getting lazy in my old age.
Also, in this kind of project - would you use the same stain on all pieces or does it really matter?
Oak and walnut make a nice contrast. IME, cherry and walnut won't give you very much contrast over time if that is what you are looking for. Walnut and maple works well for contrast also.
Hmmm - come to think of it, I made a few bandsaw boxes with that combo and a shellac finish - looked great. Gotta try and visualize it on a bigger scale.
Nice choise, even if I had enough wood, still I would build out of walnut and maple, this is what I have for many projects I built, dining table, dresser chairs etc, they look better as they get older. But the better or equellant choise is Cherry and Maple. Maple saty the same color while cherry gets darker. Max
With walnut and cherry my finish of choice is hand rubbed oil/varnish, a la Sam Maloof. I have used cherry inlay in walnut table tops with this type of finish and the cherry eventually darkens past any walnut sapwood present ... interesting, but very little contrast if that's what you're looking for.
My excuse is that I don't use it much, so I simply don't have that much experience finishing it.
I'm making a hall table right now with walnut legs, apron and back scroll and maple top and drawer fronts. Don't plan to stain anything, just clear finish.
Have a friend who does this all the time, calls it art furniture. His stuff looks good. He'll stick some Corian inlays in the mix on occasion.
I disagree. Maple darkens with age, but much more slowly than cherry so the cherry will appear darker within days of being cut, and progresively more so with little change in the maple for a year or ten. After that, the cherry will seem to stay about the same while the maple darkens over the next several decades.
Black Walnut gets lighter with age. Unless it is finished with something like a linseed oil finish that darkens it will eventually appear amber. If left unfinished it will probably be lighter than the cherry in a couple of years. Much lighter in 5 years.
The dakening of cherry is primarily due to UV exposure, the lightening of walnut is due primarily to oxidation.
I think any combination of the wooods except for oak with maple could look good. But there is no accounting for taste.
Buy more wood and stick with a conservative theme, unless you like to create a fadish cheap look by using contrasting woods. Mixing the woods you have is a gimmick. Think of what you'll see 10-15 years from now. Woodworkers are the world's worst judges of what looks best because they get hung up on displaying the wood regardless of what looks good overall, including a good design.
As others have pointed out, rightfully so IMHO, the look can become 'gimmicky' if one isn't careful. I have made a couple of small raised panel doors, where the panel is hard maple, and the rails and stiles are cherry. No stains, just nitro-c lacquer. Over the years, it has become very striking in appearance. But, having said that, I got away with it, because the two small doors were part of a wall-unit, where the front edge of some bulky shelves were also maple, but the predominant wood was cherry. It easily could have become garish. Instead, the small bits of maple just created a subtle accent.
Personally, I love maple and cherry more than any other species of wood. Cherry is so nice and warm and understated... and maple can blow your mind when the birds-eyes turn into pearls that float in a 3rd dimension. I have seen that on the back of a vintage Les Paul... just incredible. Swiss pear can be really nice in the right application.
Walnut: I built a few thousand loudspeakers back in the early 80's and the bulk of them were walnut veneer. 1/32" on HD PB. I still see some of them around when they are in need of repair, and I find that walnut just doesn't stand up to time very well. Orangey-looking stuff. Not nice.
Mahogany: Can be striking. Not my taste.
I just went through my bundle of 110 samples of veneers. I bought that box at Constantines in New York many moons ago. By the time I discarded the mundane, boring, too-wild, too busy, pretentious veneers... I was left with 3 maples and 2 cherries and a pear.
I like maple and cherry together, as will as mahogany with either of them or walnut.
My personal taste runs towards similar grained woods with limited steps in color. Try kicking some of the combos into Google Images and see what ideas you get.
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