I felled a black cherry tree in my yard and now I'm milling the wood from it. I am finding all of this wood to be about the color of Maple, maybe a wee bit darker. How come whenever you see any Cherry furniture or cabinets it is a dark reddish brown in color? Is it always stained?
-Jim
A lot of the "cherry" furniture you see is indeed stained to get a jump on the natural darkening process due to exposure to sunlight, or is not cherry and has been stained to look like cherry after it has been exposed to sunlight.
Cherry will naturally darken with exposure to sunlight. So much so that it will become as dark as walnut over time.
Cherry sapwood is quite light, heartwood is a medium brown and - as Swingman said - darkens over time with exposure to light, no idea if sapwood darkens too.
Because we live in a world of instant gratification and people can't stand to wait the six months to a year it takes for Cherry to darken on its own. And stained Cherry never looks as good as it would if it were just left alone.
There was a case on one of those TV "court" shows, where someone was suing a cabinent maker. The person had ordered custom cabinets "made of cherry wood with a clear finish, and was expecting them to be red.
Try this one
-Jim
How come whenever you see any Cherry
Yes usually stained but you can darken Cherry "quasi" naturally using chemicals. Potassium dichromate specifically. It is in Drano, etc. but you can buy it full strength in powder form on ebay real cheap. It is a bit dangerous but works fantastic. If you leave it long enough it will go almost black, yet leave the variations of the underlying color.
I did some testing with Red Devil drain cleaner and the outcome was awesome. I have in the near future an "antiqued" Cherry bedroom set for myself and I'll probably build an extra set for sale. I just love the deep rich redish brown.
Read some about it here.
"SonomaProducts.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@n32g2000prc.googlegroups.com:
I'm not an expert in wood finishing, far from it. However, as a (bio)chemist I have had experience with potassium dichromate. Specifically, we used to use it dissolved in concentrated sulfuric acid to make a really, really powerful cleaning agent for our glassware. That takes advantage of the extremely powerful oxidation capabilities of the combination of 2 powerful oxidizers. It hurts when you get it in the eye. Later, we were forbidden to use it because chromium (chromate is an anion derived from chromium) is a carcinogen. So, be careful with potassium dichromate - an oxidizer and a carcinogen.
I surmise that drain cleaners darken wood because of their very high pH. Be careful with lye etc. At high pH your skin and other proteins are dissolved quite effectively, and the lye wil keep eating away until it is either exhausted or really rinsed away. Acids are bad for you too, but at least they denature the protein and form something of a protective layer; lye just dissolves everything.
If yoy follow any directions for the use of chemicals, know what you are doing and understand and follow the directions.
Universal paid for healthcare isn't yet available for everyone here in the US ...
Don't know if it's a combination of heat (Josepi's link?) and the chemical agent, but using K2Cr2O7 in direct sunlight will darken your wood a heck of a lot faster and with a darker shade, than applying it in a non-sunlit shop/environment. My uncle would apply it and, while still wet, flash it in direct sunlight for about 30 to 60 seconds and you could watch the darkness evolve in that time frame... darker and faster darkening, than when not exposed to sunlight.
Sonny
Or you can "gas" or "fume" the cherry to speed up the darkening - I believe ammonia does the trick pretty well.
It may be that your garden cherry is not the same cherry that is normally felled for timber. I am no expert on cherry species but istr in europe at least that the timber from a fruit bearing orchard tree was indeed pale in colour.
Tim W
I can just see it. The Court takes the cabinets off to store for the trial. In storage, the cabinets darken.
Get a red faced customer and a happy vendor.
Mart> >
Sodium hydroxide, aka red devil lye, and aluminum filings. Add water, and it gets boiling hot, hopefully also boiling out whatever muck is clogging the drain. Pouring in a kettle of boiling water is cheaper, safer, and just as effective.
Potassium dichromate is used to photosensitize certain printmaking emulsions. Red crystals, no odor. Skin contact can result in ulcers. As with Drano, use common sense.
Flexner recommends orange shellac to warm up cherry or walnut's usually cold tone. I'd lean toward that solution, since it won't age too dark.
Reason bases feel slippery is they react with skin oils to form soap.
Please comment, if you will, about the sizes of the wood after milling. Please include the height of the main trunk if possible.
Thanks Bob AZ
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Sodium hydroxide, AKA: "Caustic", "Caustic Soda".
Nasty stuff.
50% caustic is most common strength used to make soap as well as other basic products.Definitely not something to screw around with unless you have training, especially when Mother Nature darkens cherry in 6-9 months or less just using normal daylight.
Patience is a virtue.
Lew
They won't ever turn the color of cherry stain, which is the color of the fruit, not the wood. People like the customer in this story think that the wood of a cherry tree is the same color as cherry stain. These cabinets have been clear coated. I imagine they will be light colored for many years.
I want some grape cabinets.
.... and use Fruit-of-the-Loom cloth to buff them out.
Sonny
Since he felled it, the height of the main trunk is equal to the diameter.
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