I would like to slightly age cherry but don’t want to use stain. Have read that one can tint BLO or TO with aniline dye to obtain this effect. Has anyone done this, and if so, what color dye have you used. Thanks for the advice. pmm
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Replies
Can you wait a couple of weeks? If so, I'd go with boiled linseed oil, no tint. If you want a more durable finish, you can topcoat it with something (I like General Finishes Arm-R-Seal) after a couple of weeks. It will keep darkening nicely even after that, just slower. You'll get a lightly aged surface at first, maturing to a deep "Thomas Moser" color in 3-9 months.
Pete
Yeh what Pette said but heat the linseed oil to about 100 degress before appling it . Dan thewoodbug
pm,
If you're trying to match some existing aged cherry furniture then you might not want to try this but if not; maybe putting it out in the sun for a few days, turning as appropriate, and you'll be surprised at how fast it will darken on its own.
Whew, that was long winded. :-)
It just seems to me that no stain can faithfully reproduce what mother nature gave this fine wood. Just me thoughts.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 5/29/2008 4:22 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
>> maybe putting it out in the sun for a few days, turning as appropriate, and you'll be surprised at how fast it will darken on its own.This works, but it can cause checking or warping as the sun heats up one side of the wood more than the other. I've pretty much given up direct sun because of the risk of side effects.Pete
Turn the wood over so it gets exposed equally top and bottom.Howie.........
It would be nice if it was that easy. Pete
Pete, what's the problem with turning it over?When I'm "sun tanning" cherry I rotate or turn it over every hour or so. Generally I try to do my "sun tanning" before I complete assembly so it's fairly easy.Howie.........
Not trying to be sarcastic but what's the big hurry? Why the urge to change a wood to something else? To me one of the beauties of cherry is the fact that it does change over time. It sort of acclimates itself to its environment.
I'm trying to understand this a bit better or at least from another perspective perhaps. As I said before, if you're trying to match an existing piece then that may be a good reason but given time it will/should be difficult to tell the difference anyway.
Even if there are differences, that is the nature of cherry and in my mind its inherent beauty.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 6/2/2008 11:13 am ET by KiddervilleAcres
What the others have said. Cherry deserves the best and the best is time.
Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Hey Bruce,
You know this topic pops up every now and then and I still don't understand using chemicals to alter the natural aging of wood. I mean we go to great lengths to pick out stunning wood for our pieces and then to use man made chemical concoctions to change it, well just kind of goes against the grain methinks.
To me it's akin to painting it!
Just my 2¢,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I can understand the use of various concoctions to achieve a particular look (e.g., fumed oak). What I don't understand is using them to make something "look old." My question in that case is, "What is the thing going to look like when it really is old?"
-Steve
When they are really old ! There are some really old pieces in the Cleveland Museum of art (mostly oak) that are heavily carved and you can't see the wood for the patina, 300/400/500 years of grunge. The old armor and swords are shiny new, WHY? Why the big fetish on seeing black grunge? They worry about keeping the old masters oils cleaned and the colours vibrant !! Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Steve,
I have the first keepsake box that I made which was made with cherry. It was a present to my father nearly 15 years ago and it has, to me anyway, the look/color of mahogany; perhaps a bit more brownish than red.
All finishes impart some change to the natural look of all woods but I would guess this to be about as close to natural as one could get - it was finished with clear shellac.
The box is up at our camp in Canada and I don't have a pic of it but will get one over the weekend.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Agree, there are some lumbers that deserve to be left alone. And Cherry and Walnut(domestics) that are the on my Holy Grail list. I can deal with lightly tinting the maples and Oak is oak, who cares. And you can fry in Hell for staining most of the exotics.Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Bob:
This discussion makes me think about a job we did several years ago. We were hired to build and install a 2 story library interior for a house just outside Aspen Colorado. It was to be of solid cherry and the finish was to provide the best view of the wood while still retaining a tactile connection to the wood surface. Hubby and I worked for 4 months straight and finally completed the job a few days before the client arrived from Spain to summer in our mountains. Mrs. client walked into the new library, looked at it and said and I quote, "It's simply too dark, if you can't find a lighter shade of Cherry you'll just have to paint it white!" With that she got into her Bently and left.
The painters arrived the next morning, I cried for a day and we got paid like nothing had ever happened. I can only hope that someday the house will sell and someone will strip the paint off all that cherry and find the treasure just under the surface!
As for darkening the surface of cherry, just a bit of sun light and some oil finish will do the trick. Awe heck on second thought; just paint it white, nobody likes dark rich beautiful natural cherry anyway!!
Madison
Madison,
Holy cow!
It's a good thing it wasn't me who made those or I'm afraid I would have taken them back out and/or Mrs. Huffy would have gotten a earful from me!
I remember you posting this story a while back and it just goes to show ya don't it? I cringed when I first read it and again just now. Just can't fathom what they were thinking.
Thanks,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Well I guess it just goes to show you that an abundance of money does not equate to any appreciation for the beauty of the things around one. The only thing that saved the day was that we were paid in full with not so much as a whisper of complaint. As a matter of fact some time later we received a commission from one of their neighbors, you guessed it client one showed client two her beautiful "cherry" library! What a hoot. We could have built the whole thing with MDF and painted it white and she'd ahve never known the difference I guess.
Client two turned out to be a dream come true and we have done a number of jobs for them and every single one of them is actually showing it's natural colors so I do know for a fact that cherry will age nicely, particularly if you leave the white paint off!
You just gotta shake your head and move on.
Madison
I'd love to be a fly on the wall if and when Mrs. Huffy happens to visit client-2 and sees their cherry library!
:-)
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
A fellow I know used DRANO! Apparently, it causes a chemical reaction that ages the wood. The result was fantastic. He had to neutralize the wood with vinegar. Now, not being a fan of either caustic chemicals or vinegar, I read an article in this here magazine that baking soda will age cherry as well.
op here. Thanks for all the tips. I have, and will continue to use indirect sunlight. It does work. Also, I would never stain cherry, for the reasons you all have given. In my opinion, cherry is the holy grail of woods (just saw the indy jones movie, hence the reference to the holy grail). My thought was adding a small amt. of aniline dye to BLO or TO just as a "tint". Still not sure if that would work. Maybe I just experiment on some scrap- but I did want to know if anyone had tried this before. pmm
pm,
Not sure what color tint you're thinking about but depending on the needs mebbe give Garnet or Amber shellac a try? Just a thought.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 5/31/2008 8:13 am ET by KiddervilleAcres
We use Dewaxed Dark Amber Shellac, which we buy in flakes here in Canada from Wood Essence. It darkens the wood and pops the figure, without compromising Cherry's natural lustre (or 'shimmer'). We've even been known to add just the smallest possible amount of FX Liquid Dye (mostly their 'Aged Natural Cherry' but sometimes 'Burnt Umber'), not so much to artificially age the wood, but to disguise the occasional tiny tidbit of sap wood. We very carefully pad this on in suspicious areas after the first coat of unadultrated shellac has dried.
As others have noted on the thread, the best way to darken cherry is to wait on it and let it do its thing naturally.
If you want to avoid the "freshly cut" look because you want to show or sell the piece, then UV radiation is probably the best way. It avoids the possible color shift problems you might have with aniline dye over the long term, and doesn't leave tell-tale drip marks on edges.
Chris Schwarz wrote a side-bar about aging cherry by treating it with BLO and placing the piece in a tanning bed for a couple of hours in Woodworking magazine - the results were dramatic. Because of the season (summer), there may indeed be some risk to exposing the piece to unfiltered sunlight because of the heat and humidity. An alternative is the use of a metal halide lamp designed to mimic the equatorial sun over a coral reef tank. You can get "bare bones" fixtures and lamps from http://www.thatpetplace.com or from Champion Supply for about $200, possibly less on sale, and they're quite effective. In fact, so effective that you will burn your retinas if you stare directly into the bulb - somewhat like snow-blindness.
I made a top for a TV stand about 2 years ago out of cherry ( hence the name, Cherry John). Since a TV would be sitting on it I was worried about the unequal discoloration. I treated the top with Watocos Fruitwood and today if you move the TV you cant tell where the TV was. Id do it again
Wicked Decent Woodworks
(oldest woodworking shop in NH)
Rochester NH
" If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy........yessa!"
"I made a top for a TV stand about 2 years ago out of cherry ( hence the name, Cherry John)."
??? That doesn't make any sense. Now, if, instead of a TV stand, you had made a toilet out of cherry....
-Steve
Once you have sanded the piece, place it in bright direct sunlight. The longer you leave it in the sunlight, the more it will oxidize. Then use regular tung oil. Allow it to dry thoroughly overnight and the lightly buff with 0000 steel wool. Repeat the tung oil followed by steel wool step four or five times. You can then top it off with a few coats of rub on polyurethane. It probably would be good to practice on a scrap piece of cherry to see how you like it. Staining should not be necessary. Check out David Marks web page http://www.djmarks.com. go to the "tv" link. look for the show where he talks about finishes. There is more information there.
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