Another Cherry Finishing Question

Mike Jory

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I've made the Tilt Top Table from a Norm project, in Cherry. I don't plan to dye or stain it, letting it age naturally. But I'm curious about a couple of things. I know Cherry has a tendancy to show blotches. Since I'm not using any dyes or stains, I want to make sure I avoid these.

To get the grain figure to show better, I'll probably use Watco Danish Natural as the first step. Then maybe WaterLox or, wipe on polyurethane. But if my memory serves, even with Danish Oil, can blotches still show? I don't have hardley any sapwood in the project, but I still don't want the boards to show uneven.

Should I consider the Minwax Conditioner? If I choose something like clear dewaxed Shellac as the base, can I forget the Danish Oil to get the grain firgure to really show through?

I read Terry Brown's post on his Cherry project and I agree with the advice. I've stayed away from dye & stain on Cherry. I saw Bill Esposito's Cherry rocker and I admire how even it looks. Maybe some of that success is due to board selection? From his pictures, maybe I'll be alright with just Danish Oil and then a clear top coat as he suggests.
I've cleaned the piece with mineral spirits and to check the color and consistancy of the wood. If blotches were going to be a problem, would I see them at this point before it evaporates?

Thanks, all comments welcomed.
Mike
 
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I'm not an expert at all the options you are considering, but I have done a lot of cherry furniture, and hate any stain or dye (other than perhaps a little dye to hide sapwood), and just put on a clear finish (I recently switched from solvent lacquer to water based)
 
It's been my understanding that the blotchiness in cherry was only a potential problem when you used stains or dyes, but using a clear finish (including oil like Danish Oil) wouldn't blotch. Is this not the case? (There's a lot about finishing cherry that I don't know, so do I have it mixed up?)

I've only built a few small-scale projects like boxes out of cherry, and used BLO to pop the grain followed by a few coats of something clear. I've not had any blotchiness problems. :huh:
 
It's been my understanding that the blotchiness in cherry was only a potential problem when you used stains or dyes, but using a clear finish (including oil like Danish Oil) wouldn't blotch. Is this not the case? (There's a lot about finishing cherry that I don't know, so do I have it mixed up?)

I've only built a few small-scale projects like boxes out of cherry, and used BLO to pop the grain followed by a few coats of something clear. I've not had any blotchiness problems.

I've seen numerous mentions of cherry blotchiness over the years. But I've never understood it. I've made a number of projects out of cherry. I've finished with shellac, with waterlox, with Tried-n-true Original Finish, with varathane... and I think it all looks fine. I've never seen this blotchiness that people warn about.

Here are two closeups of a bench that I made in '05 from Cherry. It was finished with Circa 1850 Tung-n-Teak oil, IIRC.
close3.jpgclose2.jpg

Here is a closeup of a shelf I made last year. I finished it with one coat of shellac, followed by 2-3 coats of Flecto WB Varathane.
shelf-installed2.jpg

I've begun to wonder if Cherry "blotch" is, well maybe not a myth, but one of those things where some people see it, and others (like me) just see the "way cherry looks".

...art
 
I've never had any blotching with cherry when I applied a clear finish on it. And I don't know anyone who has ever had that problem. Maybe it's an urban legend.

Mike
 
Thanks for the replies.
This past weekend, I took the safe route and applied Natural Danish Oil. I've put Danish Oil on practically everything I've made. Always with good safe results. I've brought it into the house to dry for a week or two before I decide what top coat I'll apply.

After I drastically reduced the image size, I was finaly able to get examples of the table uploaded to show the finish.
 

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Looks real good, Mike. Very nice work. :thumb:

One thing you might try on the photo resizing is to save the picture at a bit bigger physical size (like 800 x 600 pixels), but knock the picture "quality" down to 80% to 90% of the "best" quality setting in your photo software. That will usually get the picture down to a workable size, but leave the image big enough to show more detail. Here's a tutorial I did on picture resizing a while back. Or if you're stumped, e-mail the pics to me and I'll tweak 'em. (Your table deserves to be shown off.) ;)
 
Hey art. You actually do have "blotches" in your pics there. But here's the deal with so-called blotchiness: one man's blotch is another man's figure. What many folks refer to as blotchiness is the fact that the wood absorbs different amounts of stain in different areas. This is a common phenomenon in cherry, alder, maple, and birch, just to name a few. The different absorption rates can be caused by the properties of the wood itself or even changes in grain direction. But when its due to changing grain direction, we like to call it "figure". So when the pattern is repeating, its pleasant to look at. But when you just have a few spots of uneven absorption here and there, some people call it blotchy and consider it unpleasant.
Now when you just clear coat it, this blotching is not as noticeable because there is no dye or pigment that gives us a visible indicator of the absorption rate. If you look closely at some of Arts pictures, you will see light and dark areas. To my eye, this is a beautiful thing and give the piece depth and interest. But to some, its blotchy. So its definitely not an urban legend, but I do feel that in some cases, its really just a matter of taste.

marc
 
ok another cherry question

has or can you you spray shellac rather brush it and get good results was thinking of spraying some garnet shellac on cherry to get the pop then put lascqur over it???
 
has or can you you spray shellac rather brush it and get good results was thinking of spraying some garnet shellac on cherry to get the pop then put lascqur over it???

I normally put lacquer directly on cherry, and let the color come naturally. However, I do sometimes spray shellac, including amber shellac (haven't tried garnet) as a sealer. For example, I am doing a large walnut table now, and the amber shellac under the clear finish makes the color of the table go better with the customer's prefinished walnut flooring.

Shellac works under (or over) practically any finish, except you must use dewaxed shellac under polyurethane. By the time the wax is out, so is the color, so dewaxed shellac is white.
 
garnet shellac

well charlie cant trrember who, but they sugested garnt to get aredish hue started and the grian poping effcts with garnet shellac, what cut do you use to spray it and how do you go about making your cuts i have no scale and was told of a volume methode but havnt do either yet.. have used stright out of the can and thinned to look but no science:) so any suggesteions would be apprciated charlie
 
For safety, don't put shellac that contains wax under any finish - dewaxed shellac is readily available - it'd be embarassing to have the finish peel because of the wax - and a real pain to fix. If you want some color in the shellac, spray on a natural base coat then spray on a tinted coat. The "cut" is not that critical - as long as you can spray it properly, that's all you really have to worry about. In fact, I think cutting it too much is more of a problem - it doesn't dry as fast as it should and you can run into problems, especially vertical surfaces. But it is a base coat so if you have runs you can sand them out easily.

If you are experienced in shooting lacquer and poly, you won't have any problems with shellac.

Mike
 
ok mike,then what about this

i havnt tried tinting shellac or laquer, but i do think i want alittle more red, the cherry i have is from my area not the good stuff from PA, so what would your suggestion be for the proper tactic. this is a hutch that is 70" tall so i got alittle vertical work on it:rolleyes: the cherry is real curly so i want it to pop as much as i can get before the final lac coats.
 
i havnt tried tinting shellac or laquer, but i do think i want alittle more red, the cherry i have is from my area not the good stuff from PA, so what would your suggestion be for the proper tactic. this is a hutch that is 70" tall so i got alittle vertical work on it:rolleyes: the cherry is real curly so i want it to pop as much as i can get before the final lac coats.

To tint the shellac you would add an alcohol based dye to the shellac. The color is up to you but talk with your supplier and you can probably get some good recommendations. When mixing it, be very precise so you can mix a new batch and get the same color. When spraying, you want to be consistent so the color is consistent (small variations don't matter - it just looks like the variations in the wood).

Don't try to put on a lot of color with one coat - it'll be too hard to control. If you want more color, do more coats until you get what you want. You'll also be able to see where you were "thin" in your previous coat and you can hit that area a bit harder. Because it's a base coat, you don't have to worry about blending it as much as if it was a final coat because you're going to lightly sand it before you put your top coat on. If you have an area that's too dark, just sand it a bit more. I'm making it sound more difficult than it really is - you can think about it as making a blond shellac into a garnet shellac (or darker) with the dye.

The alternative would be to use a stain (instead of a dye) and put it on either before or after the first base coat of shellac. I'll ask the other posters here to suggest a stain color and whether they apply it before or after the first base coat of shellac. You might try each on some scrap to see which gives you the effect you want. Sounds like you don't want a lot of color - just something to bring out the grain.

Mike

[added note] One more thought. If you're doing a complex piece it's hard to get all the inside corners even with a regular spray gun. Do what you can with the regular gun then follow with a detail gun to get the inside corners even. You can also use a brush to get into places where the gun won't reach well.
 
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well charlie cant trrember who, but they sugested garnt to get aredish hue started and the grian poping effcts with garnet shellac, what cut do you use to spray it and how do you go about making your cuts i have no scale and was told of a volume methode but havnt do either yet.. have used stright out of the can and thinned to look but no science:) so any suggesteions would be apprciated charlie

Larry, Mike has great advice. A couple points of trivia that may help...

Shellac out of most cans is 3 pound cut... the equivalent of using 3 pounds of dry shellac in a gallon of alcohol. If you diluted it 50-50 with Alcohol, you would have a 1 1/2 pound cut. It is the only finish that specifies how thin it is in this way... in practice, I glob some alcohol in until it sprays or brushes good. If you get it too thin, leave it open, the alcohol will evaporate, and it will get thicker.

Unpurified shellac is pretty dark... often called garnet. Purify it a little, and it is called amber. Purify it more, and it is called blonde. more and it is called white.

If you are dealing with solvent based lacquer, varnish, or whatever, I wouldn't worry about the wax in shellac, since the solvents dissolve the wax - and it is only polyurethane that can't tolerate any wax in the mixture. Since I have been converting to water base finishes, there is no solvent to dissolve the wax... I thank Mike for the reminder that I probably need a blonde (dewaxed) shellac over the amber shellac in this case.
 
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