Another Example of an Aged Cherry Box

[Vaughn McMillan]

Mike Stafford posted here about a beautiful cherry pencil box he made years ago and showed a photo of how nicely the cherry had aged. I didn't want to hijack that thread, so I figured I'd show a couple pics of the first box I ever made. There's a good chance I was inspired by Mike's work in making this one. I was still pretty new to woodworking, and I absorbed a lot of ideas looking at pics of other people's work.

This photo was taken in September of 2005. It's cherry, with a couple of padauk pieces as accents on the handle. I used simple box joints on 4/4 stock and then I trimmed the sides and ends thinner. I used the offcuts from the sides to make the top. I cut the coves on my tablesaw after the sides and bottom were assembled. As I recall, I used some type of oil-based General Finishes clear wipe-on poly for a finish.


And here's a quick phone shot of the same box, nearly 20 years later. I probably should have dusted it a bit better before taking the picture.


I sure love how cherry ages!

 

[Mike Stafford]

Mike Stafford posted here about a beautiful cherry pencil box he made years ago and showed a photo of how nicely the cherry had aged. I didn't want to hijack that thread, so I figured I'd show a couple pics of the first box I ever made. There's a good chance I was inspired by Mike's work in making this one. I was still pretty new to woodworking, and I absorbed a lot of ideas looking at pics of other people's work.

This photo was taken in September of 2005. It's cherry, with a couple of padauk pieces as accents on the handle. I used simple box joints on 4/4 stock and then I trimmed the sides and ends thinner. I used the offcuts from the sides to make the top. I cut the coves on my tablesaw after the sides and bottom were assembled. As I recall, I used some type of oil-based General Finishes clear wipe-on poly for a finish.


And here's a quick phone shot of the same box, nearly 20 years later. I probably should have dusted it a bit better before taking the picture.


I sure love how cherry ages!

Dust adds character....

To continue the discussion about cherry and its propensity to darken I will relate this story.

I had several 5/4 cherry planks that were around 10 feet long. I could have planed them down in the shop but it would have been a challenge to do so by myself. So I moved my portable planer and its stand outside and planed the planks. It was much easier for me to feed from one side and then run to the other side and take the planed boards in hand. There were fewer obstacles for me to dodge outside.

When I was finished I took one of the planks inside and started laying it out for the jewelry box I was going to build with it. Jewelry boxes that I build require several different thicknesses of wood. Those 5/4 blanks were broken down into 1/2", 3/8", 1/4" and even some 1/8" thicknesses. I had to cut the pieces to length and then resaw the various pieces so I could run them through the planer to get the final thickness.

While I was doing all this measuring, marking, cutting to length and width and resawing the remaining planks were outside on sawhorses. A nearby sweet gum tree was beginning to drop its leaves and a couple of those leaves landed on my freshly planed boards. I guess they were in the sun for about three hours before I was ready to move everything back into the shop. When I went to move the boards inside I dumped the leaves off and to my surprise the outline of a 5 pointed sweet gum leaf was clearly visible. Just that amount of exposure resulted in shadows of the leaves being formed on the boards. Cherry is very photo sensitive and will sun tan in no time at all.

I learned to be careful with my cherry boards and kept them out of the sun.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

Conversely a lot of walnut has a propensity to lighten dramatically.

My SO had gotten a very nice cherry spinning wheel with walnut accents. When she got it new the cherry was a beautiful light color and the walnut was dark chocolate brown. Fast forward a few years and the cherry is now much darker than the walnut due to the walnut lightening and the cherry darkening.

 

[Mike Stafford]

Conversely a lot of walnut has a propensity to lighten dramatically.

My SO had gotten a very nice cherry spinning wheel with walnut accents. When she got it new the cherry was a beautiful light color and the walnut was dark chocolate brown. Fast forward a few years and the cherry is now much darker than the walnut due to the walnut lightening and the cherry darkening.

Yep, walnut does get lighter sometimes.

Speaking of getting darker...I have a friend who is an antique dealer. We were having dinner at his house and he wanted me to see a document box he had recently purchased that was over 200 years old.

When he brought it out it was a dark brown and unrecognizable with respect to the identity of the timber. He wouldn't let me open it initially until I made my guesses about what the wood was. Finally he opened the box and to my surprise it was birdseye maple. The inside of the box was barely oxidized and was still pretty light in color. The outside was dark brown and the birdseye figure was not easily seen. I was barely able to make it out even when I knew what it was.

The lesson I learned is that all woods get darker.

 

[Rennie Heuer]

It do age good!