I am in the middle of making kitchen cabinets in cherry. I have decided to finish them in catalyzed lacquer from Sherwin-Williams.
I recall reading here on knots on another thread that to apply a dye to cherry was an offense that merited expulsion.
To avoid that fate should I just abandon my concoction of dyes, apply the lacquer and let the cherry darken by itself?
Hastings
Replies
I'm glad you're not putting dye on cherry because it's a Crime Against Humanity and entails the death penalty.
I'm making a vanity from cherry and put the sanded stuff out in the sun for about 3 days to redden it. Then put on BLO which brings out the red even more. Looks pretty well aged now.
because it's a Crime Against Humanity and ..........
Well, I'm glad that others are seeing the true light.
Dye on cherry? Must mean that you don't share my family values, that you don't believe in democracy, that you're a flag burnin', gun registerin', cut-and-runnin .......
OOPS -- sorry - got carried away.
Support our Troops. Bring them home. Now. And pray that at least some of the buildings in the green zone have flat roofs, with a stairway.
Yes, M'
There is nothing wrong with being willing to dye for your cherry.
Ray
Ray,
C'mon guy! Let the Cherry show its true colors. I know it's not mahogany but....
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 6/13/2007 8:54 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
If you get these done while it's still summer and can let them baste for a few days, I'd set them on stickers outside for a sun-tan. They'll darken up very nicely with very little work involved. Wiping on some boiled linseed oil will darken them up too but then there's the issue of needing to wait until it's cured before you do any further finishing. Dont have any experience with the SW lacquer but I suspect you might to darken the cherry a bit first.
If you build it he will come.
Check the label of the lacquer to make sure there are no UV inhibitors.
Otherwise the cherry won't darken too much.
J.P.
Hamlet is of help:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
And:
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
And, just for the reference:
To be or not to be-that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them.
Edited 6/12/2007 9:36 pm ET by SteveSchoene
"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."Samuel JohnsonEnglish author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)Steve:Thank you for your thoughts via the words of WSHastings
Hamlet is of help:
Right play, right solliloquy, wrong line. He's talking about applying finish after all:
"aye, there's the rub;"
I have a friend who made some cherry cabs and was bent on staining them in a dark color.
He loves the result, but I think it is hideous.
So the moral is --- to each his own.
********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
My own inclination is to let the wood speak for itself.Many thanks for your advice. The finish that I plan to use does not inhibit the natural aging of the wood.I picked up a strong impression that most folk routinely applied some dye to cherry, if only to accelerate the natural darkening. It's good to see that that is not the case.I think I will pass on the dye!Regards,Hastings
I see nothing wrong with using dye on Cherry or any other wood if it helps achieve the color you want. In fact, dyes are routinely used as part of a multi-step color process on Cherry. I've used it many times on Cherry over the years and would do it again without hesitation if it gets me where I want to go, colorwise. Much of the really rich, uniformly colored Cherry you see in commercial fixturing and furniture has dye as part of the color process.
A word of caution on the au natural method of darkening Cherry... If the wood didn't come from the same tree then the odds are extremely high that it won't darken at the same rate. Wood magazine did a piece a few months ago on selecting hardwood for projects and as part of the piece they showed some before and after pictures of a pair of Twin-bed headboards made of glued up cherry seven years prior. The picture from the original piece seven years before showed virtually perfect uniformity of color. But seven years later the individual pieces had all darkened at different rates and to my eye looked horrible.
Kevin:As always, thank your help.It's hard to tell if my cherry came from the same tree. My supplier had a special order of 2000 bd ft. of 12/4 wood for a boat builder in New Zealand. Anyway the order was cancelled and I was able to get 500 bd. ft. There is very little sapwood. Yesterday, I applied a little BLO to some scraps as well as various mixes of dyes. So far the BLO looks nicest.BTW, your advice on the spraying proved to be invaluable. I sprayed all the carcasses before assembly and they came out very well for a first attempt.Regards,Hastings
The advantage of adding some artificial color, whether that be dyes or pigments, is that it won't change at differing rates over time. So it can help uniform the wood even after the wood has oxidized to less similar colors or depth of color. Of the two (dye & pigments), the dye will look the most natural while the pigment will do more to distract from the differing colors of the wood itself. With a wood like Cherry there often is no perfect solution short of using wood from the same tree or at least from the same couple of boards, trying to only glue up pieces that came from the same board.
Personally, I think that only gluing up pieces that came from the same board is probably the most practical solution. Natural changes in the surface plane of a piece of furniture, such as where a side meets a front, go a long ways toward distracting the eye from color differences because we expect the two planes to look different because the way they are juxtaposed to each other. In that situation the side being made from one board while the front was made from another board would probably look great over time with no added artificial color. IMHO of course.
I think you have brought out one of the key differences between OK cabinets and furniture and Great pieces. The choice of materials, paying attention to what boards are used for which parts, is much more important than the attention paid by some. Articles which have cutting diagrams--which inevitably take no notice of the grain or figure of the wood--are one of the worst offenders. (I don't see these in FWW fortunately, but routinely in the 4 letter alternative.)
The um... four letter alternative is as you described, IMO. The article showing the before and after pics of the Cherry Sleigh Twin headboards is the only article that I've personally found compelling in that magazine. But they did a real service by publishing them. It's one thing to intellectually aknowledge the color changes over time with Cherry, which many of us are aware of. It's another thing entirely to see it right in front of your eyes in full color to really drive the point home.
I purchased the issue and took it to work so that I could show it to Project Managers. One immediately wanted to photocopy it so that he could then show it to a client who we were doing a bunch of Cherry work for.
Maybe FWW could take it to the next level and do a piece on how to estimate, purchase and construct with Cherry so that the color change over time will be minimized. It certainly would be in keeping with the name of the magazine...
I'm afraid that will be a disappointing project. If you bury the cherry under semi-opaque pigment it won't change as rapidly. UV absorbers might slow some of the change, and cutting it off from oxygen, perhaps encased in epoxy might also slow the change. You might also keep it under opaque covers.
I suspect that if you like the look of "fresh" cherry, you should choose alder, or red birch, or even dye maple or poplar to the desired color.
If you like dark cherry, buy the wood so that you can keep lumber from the same tree together and match glue-ups, as you said. Then the natural color change works for you, not against you. It might be interesting to see how Moser matches its cherry, since it is their dominant wood and finished only with BLO. Estimating when cherry is the wood is particularly challenging since there is so much variation in the amount of sap wood. I'm sure the extra waste is why cherry comes at so much of a premium in kitchen cabinets.
Edited 6/14/2007 9:28 pm ET by SteveSchoene
Perhaps I didn't articulate what I meant very well. I'd like to see an article on a Moser knock-off (or some other higher end manufactorer that doesn't color the wood) so that the average Joe or Jane out there could see first-hand how to select and work with Cherry so that what they produce won't need any color added and will look great 5 - 10 years down the road.
My "thing" is mostly the finishing end of the spectrum and the fine woodworking that I indulge in isn't furniture. But I would guess that an amateur putting a lot of effort into copying a fine piece of furniture using Cherry has got to feel some sense of frustration when it doesn't remain looking as beautiful as when he/she first finished it. FWW would be doing those folks a service by walking them through the steps of how to work with a difficult wood like Cherry so that their handiwork will age as gracefully as a Moser piece will.
Finding a way to maximize the poorer quality Cherry that is available these days, such as using the sapwood in place of secondary woods, would be an integral part of the point of the piece.
Does that make more sense? It all makes sense in my head, but I'm not sure I'm communicating what I'm thinking very well. LOL
Edited 6/14/2007 9:59 pm by Kevin
Ah, I get it now. However, I do think the Moser solution may be the only really good one. Seeking out quality sources for lumber and selecting it vigorously is still likely the best approach for amateurs and small commercial shops that are aiming at high quality results. Trying to make a silk purse from the sow's ear has always been an exercise in frustration.
Sometimes financial considerations do mitigate against buying top quality cherry with the expectation even-so of having 30% waste. But I believe is that it is better to make another, less photoreactive wood take on the appearance of cherry, whether fresh or antique, than to try to fight mother nature. A good set of schedules to make some of the other alternatives have a rich cherry finish would be a very good idea. It might be approached from two perspectives, for those with capability to spray solvent materials, and for those, likely the larger number of readers, that only have the ability to use hand applied finishes.
The foibles of finishing cherry is one of the most common topics on these forums, so there should be a lot of interest in such an article.
Even with the higher costs I'd bet that there would still be takers for whom money is a consideration, but not the point of the exercise. I sometimes like to cook a full blown really fancy meal for my lady. It invariably costs more than I wish it had, and certainly more than it would have to take her out on the town at all but the most expensive restaurants, but the cost is never really something that I consider until later because it's a labor of love on a variety of levels. Fine woodworking is too for many of us. Maybe we'll tackle a smaller project because of the costs, but we want it to look great.
What shade/colour/tint/hue do you want? (That is superior to the natural unique tone that Cherry attains with some time) (,)
I would apply any stain or dye to prime Cherry as long as it is transparent, to put it another way.Philip Marcou
Edited 6/13/2007 3:56 am by philip
Hastings,
Here is another vote for leaving the cherry to age naturally under its transparent protective coat.
Personally I even like a bit of the lighter sapwood here and there, to emphasise a horizontal or vertical perhaps; or to outline a frame. If I could get the Taunton file attachment service to work with my security software, I would post you a picture or two.......
Lataxe, au naturale
Lataxe, et al:This week I put the face frames on the carcasses and installed the lower cabinets.I just wanted to let you and others who weighed in that they look great. My wife said, "thank god we didn't dye them!".I sanded the wood to 220. Applied one coat of vinyl sealer and four coats of lacquer, rubbing out with 320 between coats and 400 on the final coat. I then rubbed out the finish working up to 4000, then red, then white and finally swirl remover.The wood all comes from the same batch and the color appears even.Thanks again for the advice and wise counsel.Regards,Hastings
Unlike Men, not all Cherry was created equal. Some of it (SOME of it) requires color to even out an unattractve or unmatchable grain - or to disguise it's hideous green color that will only turn a shade darker than boring with age and exposure. I'm thinking of the differences between native New England Cherry and that from say Pennsylvania - just two examples. Some of it's good. Some of it's not.
If you can afford the time, a wash coat of BLO and turps will do wonders for that Cherry - assuming that it's *the natural* look you're after. Otherwise, dilute the dye and work you're way into the color.
If it t'were me, the Cherry would be left to darken with the help of the aforementioned oil mix and time - lots of time...
I suspect the sin of dyeing cherry comes from the furniture industry which tends to dye it that dark red/brown color which obscures most of the grain and any natural look of the cherry.
I recently made a table for my mother. She insisted that I not use cherry, saying 'It's an ugly wood'. I had no end of trouble finding the right wood, finally she says "I want it to look like your end table." Which of course was cherry. When I told were what it was she couldn't believe it, she thought cherry was that dark red brown color!
Unless one puts on an insane amount, dye does not obscure the wood... pigments do.
Unless one puts on an insane amount, dye does not obscure the wood... pigments do.
Just terminology. I think my point was clear enough. Whatever finish most mass produced cherry furniture uses, obscures the the wood, which leads way to colouring cherry being frowned apon.
Your point in your other post is well taken. Most of the cherry furniture I've mad still looks great, however I have one piece that darkened at different rates and now looks a bit off.
The mass produced stuff is almost always a mix of dyes and pigments and the choice to use pigments is quite deliberate. As you noted, it obscures the wood. But for them it's an easy way to make lower grade lumber look better at a glance.
C'est la vie.
Hastings, I don't know if you recall, but we had a very similar conversation on a thread I started about a month or so ago. At the time i was struggling quite a bit to come up with a schedule to give my cherry project the color my friend was looking for. Jeff Jewitt suggests using dye's or toners with a glaze. Personally I like it a lot. I experimented with a lacquer toner over lacquer sealed and glazed samples but didn't like my results and, being new to spraying toner I decided to go in another direction. After more experimenting with the basic process that Jeff described in his book "Great wood finishes", I think that is the name, I came up with a schedule I like a lot, and it's not too involved. I apply a reddish dye, seal with zinser sealcoat, glaze with behlen's oil based burnt umber glazing stain, and finish with the General finishes urethane blend. The sealer, which is just a dewaxed shelaq, over the dye gives the wood depth. The shelaq also shifts the color a little and gives it a warm amber tone. The glaze really brings out the figure of the wood and imparts a little brownish color as well. I like the look a lot, and there is a lot of variation you can achieve with this process.
I would recommend trying it yourself, but you have to be prepared to play around a bit with the dye color. As i said, the sealer shifts the color a bit. Also, i prefer not cutting the sealer so as to have only a minimal amount of glaze retained after you wipe it off, just enough to highlight the grain a bit and impart a little color and depth to the wood.
Also, I used a gun to apply the dye as it was easier to get a consistent color. The sealer provides for a nice unified glaze effect as well, little or no splotching.
Edited 6/17/2007 10:56 pm ET by dperfe
I am in the process of completing a cherry entertainment center made mostly from a tree cut down from my dad's property. There wasn't enough to complete every piece so I had to use cherry from an outside source and we all know how that works out. I mixed my own wash coat of garnet shellac to a 1:1 ratio and it evened out all the inconsistencies in the wood and allowed the radiance in the quartersawn cherry used for the door panels to really stand out. The shellac doesn't effect the darkening process.
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