Need to stain cherry to dark cherry

I made some shelves to go over a window in my bedroom out of cherry. I applied some shellac to a piece of scrap and it's obvious that I'm going to need to stain it to get that typical dark cherry that I'm looking for. Is there something at the home centers that'll do this or am I going to have to order something online to get that dark cherry I'm looking for out of this cherry?

Thanks, ~Craig

Reply to
CraigT
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Put the shellaced cherry outside in the sun for a few days.

ROY!

Reply to
ROY!

Hey Craig, Roy is correct. You will most likely get the shade you desire by exposing the cherry to sunlight. What I am unsure of is, if you do stain it, would the stain prevent any darkening beyond its pigmentation. When I was making my cherry bed in June I did a lot of the work outside and I was not paying attention so some peices (a few slats ) were interlaced and developed alternating bands of light and dark. Exposing the entire surface eventually blened them to near uniformity. In other words, don't stain it but wait until you get the shade you desire. Just one (cave)man's thoughts. Marc

Reply to
marc rosen

Most would call staining Cherry blasphemous (including myself)! Let the sun do it's work. And if you don't have time to let them sit in the sun for a couple of days, they will darken naturally anyway even in the house, albeit slower than if they were in direct sunlight. Cheers, cc

Reply to
Cubby

I thought the darkening of cherry was an oxidation thing, not a uv thing. In fact, I remember reading in a FWW that sunlight will actually *bleach* cherrry. Now I have to go find the issue where I saw that......

Issue was may/june 2000, article was by Jeff Jewitt. I was only partially right. Sun and oxidation to darken, but cherry left in direct sunlight for extended periods of time will bleach. Guess my memory wasn't as good as I thought. At least I think it's not.... dang, now I can't remember.....

jc

Reply to
Joe

Go to a real paint store not a home center. Old Masters brand stain has 4 stains that fit your description. Old Masters is only sold at independently owned Paint Stores.

Reply to
Roger amd Missy Behnke

Well, if it was an oxidation thing then I would suspect Cherry would not darken under an non-breathable finish, which most are. I've had cherry darken in just a matter of hours when the sun hits it (granted I'm in NM where the sun is about as harsh as it gets and we have less oxygen here given our altitude). I'd be interested to see if it's really the UV or oxygen but I've always been led to believe it's the UV. Cheers, cc

Reply to
Cubby

Absolutely a UV thing. Friends bought cherry bedroom furniture several years ago. The wife knowing that I was a wood worker told me of this about

3 weeks after they got it. I warned her to be careful about placing any thing on the dresser for extended periods of time until the furniture was a little older. An hour later she called me to inform me that she mover her 4 footed jewelry box for the first time since putting it on the dresser. There was a jewelry box sized spot under on the dresser. Air was able to get under the box but not much light got under there.
Reply to
Leon

Hmmm -- should have done a google search before posting this. I see a few subtle flames from the blasphemy furnace have started. I'll not flame; though I too hold that staining cherry if *generally* a really bad idea. In general, we don't have shop classes any more so people are uneducated about wood and unable to appreciate anything beyond Ikea. That coupled with the lack of patience that pervades our society causes the search for a quick fix.

In contrast to most, I will point out that not all cherry is the same color, nor will it be the same color when aged. For example, I have a few cherry pieces which were made over a two year window. One is the deepest darkest red I've ever seen in un-stained/painted cherry -- about the same color as the purple paint used on mass produced stuff. Another is very light (no it's not sapwood) running almost to pink and orange. These are all natural variations. Fresh off the saw the former was darker/redder than the latter after aging. I'm glad they aren't the same -- if I wanted uniform color I'd have plastic furniture. Cherry particularly is sensitive to geography/soil. Cherry from SE MN will often go almost grey rather than red; from southern IN it'll vary but can often be blood red; PA cherry is the gold standard.

So a big question: let's say you find the stain you want. Will it be what you want *after* the wood under the stain darkens?

hex

-30-

Reply to
hex

In my area, I can get Old Masters products at the local non-borg hardware store.

Reply to
Michael Faurot

subtle flames from the >blasphemy furnace have started. I'll not

No kidding.... this is a fight not worth starting. Some would rather sit with a wonderfully finished piece of cherry that is soft pink, knowing that over many years their grandkids >might< wind up with the color of wood they see in a magazine or furniture building book. To them it is much better to wait a few decades and feel like a traditionalist rather than than toning or applying dye to wood to make it look like a traditional cherry piece that is a couple of hundred years old.

Personally, I want to enjoy things now. Besides, I don't have 50 - 75 years to wait to see >>>>IFred; PA cherry is the gold standard.

you want *after* the wood under the stain >darkens?

All good points, hex. Especially about the regional differences. Down here in South Texas, we don't have cherry in any amount except as an import for other areas. And since wood is bought and sold as a commodity, you really never know what region (much less forest!) you load of cherry came from. Even our good local supplier buys on the spot market from one of several suppliers, and when he gets in a shipment, it all goes into the warehouse, this shipment mixed with that, etc.

And I have NO doubt that we don't get the good stuff; I have seen furniture made from cherry actually bought on the NE coast. When comparing that to the stuff we get here, it honestly looks like a different species of wood. Some of ours is so gray that it looks like weathered birch to me.

And guess what... leaving it out in the sun makes it turn a pinkish gray. Nasty.

I think every intelligent finisher needs to know and understand the medium in which he works. If leaving wood out in the sun gets it the color you want, great! But -some purists still insist that to get the completely authentic look of brick red cherry, you must fume. (C'mon, you don't really think they left those Federalist highboys out in the back yard in the sun for a couple of days to let it work over the joints and hide glue didja? How would every joint and 90 degree angle hidden in the piece get to be the same exact color?).

I personally think whatever gets you where you want to go is what you should do. I think it is a shame to stain or slather poly on ANY pretty piece of wood, no matter what species. And I have the patience of an oyster sometimes. But if the wood isn't cooperating and after a couple of tests, and if I don't get what I want... out comes the dyes and gels.

As always, just my 0.02.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

SNIP

cherry that I'm looking for. Is there >something at the home centers that'll do this or am I >going to have to order something online to get that dark >cherry I'm looking for out of this cherry?

Sorry Craig, I was intrigued by hex's post and went OT.

I would think that you might strike out at any of the home stores, but as far as colorants go you have some good suggestions with the Old Masters, but I would stick to the gel products - they are excellent.

Prcatice a little on another piece of wood, not your project so you can see how fast you work. If you need to, you can thin the gel a bit to make it work easier and to have less witness marks on your laps. Other gels aren't that forgiving.

For me, I would mix up some Behlens Solar Lux (online, Woodcraft, etc.) and spray it on. I get great performance from this product, and for its use, I don't think any other product out there can match it. Great depth of color, great consistency, and takes any finish you apply very well.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

hmmm ... I did my kitchen cabinets in Cherry this past winter. I'm getting a significant darkening in just a few months. Me thinks that 50-75 years is a bit exagerated for the wait period. In the 6 months that I have had the cabinets up in the kitchen I have gotten a very satisfying darkening.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Lewis

Yep, I agree -- 50 to 75 *weeks* is more than enough to see a considerable, and very pleasing, deep rich color. An (approx) 18-yo cherry bookcase in my living room hasn't become discernibly darker in the last eight to ten years.

Reply to
Doug Miller

I hate to finish, have never been good at it, complete the building a piece of furniture and dread "ruining" it by finishing. Just this weekend, I used the Thermawood/Valspar finish schedule for Old English Cherry. It came out beautiful.

Saw some sample pieces at their booth at IWF several years ago and always wanted to try it. So I did.

Down side is it is complicated and expensive. You may not want to consider it for a single shelf set. I'm doing a whole bedroom.

Complicated in that their are eleven steps and the schedule contains nine unique liquids, six for coloring, aging and accent, three for sealing and topping. It is lacquer based, so at least the dry time is very short. Took me two six hour sessions to do three pieces of furniture.

Mine still not quite as good as I remember the samples but the best I've ever done. Difference probably due to pro's doing the samples with better spray equipment, particularly final lacquer top coat and my reluctance to be too aggressive with some of the accenting steps that impart age.

Frank

Reply to
Frank Boettcher

Most of the really dark cherry that I have used was steamed.

Reply to
Frank Drackman

The cherry we get down here from our suppliers is just crap for finishing. It is structurally sound, easy to work and expensive. Leaving it out in the sun makes the stuff I have bought streak different colors. Over a period of time, the project looks unsatisfactory to me as the gray areas never really turn.

My brother in law is from the midwest (Ohio) and they have all manner of really nice woods at their fingertips. When we looked at woods for a project in his house, the cherry we looked at looked fine to me. Used to looking at the stuff from his hometown, he thought I was joking. He thought I was looking at utility shelf material to use on his project, not appearance grade wood.

And for me, it may be different different circumstances that drive me. When someone hires me to finish a piece for them, they don't want to think that it look like the picture of something they saw in a magazine. They don't want to bet on the fact that in a year it look like the finish they paid for, or worse, even change to color they don't like. Then what?

They go to Ethan Allen or to the furniture galleries and say "this is what I want. Can you do this?" That's pretty much the long and the short of the discussion. It goes from there if the answer is "yes".

It is totally different than having a quality, dependable product (not what we have here!) that gives one reasonable expectations of performance when using it. And it is different too, than having a nice project sit in your house for a couple of years to see what you have after it gently ages, and just as interesting to see when it will stop.

I would love to have some cherry like that.

Note too, the difference of opinion here. Leon and others say it is UV exposure that changes the color. That has certainly been my experience.

But a deceased contractor friend of mine's widow called me last year and wanted me to buy cherry that has been sitting in his old shop for about 18 - 20 years. Guess what color it is? Gray and pink. Except for the sap pockets, it looks no more like cherry than a lightly stained pine board (with no knots). It has sat exposed, unfinished, open to the air and has had no appreciable color change.

Yet Mike can put up finished (I would assume with some kind of sealer) in his kitchen and in just six months be really satisfied with the coloration.

I'm tellin' ya, its different wood. All cherry no doubt, but the good stuff stays up north.

That too, is why most of the custom furniture makers down here DON"T use it. Last year at the Texas Furniture Maker's Guild show, I only saw cherry as accents.

And once again, as always, just my 0.02.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

manner

Yep.

SFWIW, the cherries from those cherry trees make very good pies.

Sounds like you need to make a deal with your BIL. and have him serve as your freight forwarder.

Freight can't be that big a deal, less than 1,500 miles from Cleveland to San Antonio, probably less than 100 lbs per job.

BTW, what part of Ohio?

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

your freight forwarder.

San Antonio, probably less than 100 >lbs per job.

You know, I had not thought of that. I am not sure why, but we have discussed all manner of things >but< direct ship point to point. Hmmm....

When he went back home this last year to see his people he brought me back a beautiful piece black walnut (I have never seen anything like this in person!) that was about 12 inches around and 16 inches long, cut very close to the root ball so it should good and swirly. It is for my lathe work, and it should be a beauty. I literally have nowhere to get a piece of walnut like that here, and it brings real tears to my eyes to know that he picked it up at the wood dump (WTF is a wood dump?) with some pieces of cherry.

He kills me when he tells me how much wood that would be great for woodturning is literally burned in the fireplace every year. As a kid he regularly burned walnut, any kind of cherry, whatever kind of maple they had, and oak. The "wild cherry" (never seen one) was explained to me to be a trash tree, as was silver maple, and some around him wouldn't even burn it. It went to the tree dump.

As a sidebar, he told me that many times the logs at the dump were so big, he couldn't move them around, species and type unknown. But you could take them if you could haul them away. It is no mystery to me that that the reason so many wonderfully talented and prolific furniture makers live in the Midwest.

Worcester, perviously known as the home of Rubbermaid. As a rite of passage, like so many in the town he even worked there during his high school summers.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

wrote

Both are garbage.

You gotta be kidding me.

It's Wooster, named after General Wooster, my home town.

Newell moved Rubbermaid out of town, but Wooster Brush is still going strong.

What is BIL name? Might even know the family.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

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