spalted cherry finish?

[Mike Ballard]

Hi -

I have some wonderful pieces of spalted cherry I'm building a tea box out of. My finishing objectives are _always_ maximizing the visual appeal of beautiful woods (I love walnut/oil/shellac, etc.). But I've not worked with cherry much, and even less spalted wood. I'm aware of finishing problems due to cherry's inconsistent density(?) but don't know if oils reveal splotches in cherry or just coloring.

So considering I want to highlight the spalting and not too interested in coloring, and it's cherry, plus there's some faint ribboning and I'd like to not highlight that (I don't think) - anyone have suggestions for a finishing procedure, or pointers to where I might see some? I have many shellacs on hand, pure tung and boiled linseed oil, waxes, etc., but would buy whatever materials someone else thinks would be best.

Thanks...

Mike

[Montyhp]

Mike,

I have used BLO and shellac on cherry an I like the look. In your situation I might be tempted to try a dye stain first to highlight the figure/spalting. Don't take my word for it, though, do a test piece.

[James Cubby Culbertson]

I've used a very thin layer of oil, just to pop the grain followed by Garnett Shellac with great success. This was on standard Cherry though, not spalted. I got this idea from both experimentation, the Wreck, and reading through Jeff Jewitt's homepage

He's got a lot of recommendations there under Articles IIRC. There is also a finishing forum there that you could avail of to ask this question and get Jeff's opinion.

Not sure that helped but Good Luck, cc