Furniture Finishing & Restoration

Finishing Cherry

"Lacquer & Shellac - Page 1"

Both lacquer and shellac act as a great "lense" on cherry; these finishes have great clarity and optical properties that bring out the depth and figure in the wood very nicely. The sample on the left is freshly planed and sanded cherry with a clear lacquer finish on it. The primary color of the wood is a salmon pink hue, though there are many highlights in the wood ranging in color from shades of green to red-browns. As the wood ages, it will darken quite a bit.

To give the aging process (darkening the wood's natural color) a head start, you can expose the wood to bright sunlight (bottom section of the sample). After construction/assembly, place the piece near a window that gets direct sunlight. Rotate the piece 90 degrees daily to even out the effect on all the sides. I've used this method a number of times and found that the UV rays from the sun will darken the wood a fair amount in about a week. After that, the effect is a lot less dramatic and seems to peak after 3-4 weeks. If you leave the piece in direct sunlight for too long, it will start to bleach the color out of the wood (it takes months for a noticable effect).

Sometimes when you're making something out of cherry, you won't plane and sand all the boards at the same time. The boards that are "older" will often be darker than the freshly planed boards. This is completely normal since the wood starts aging the minute you stop abrading the surface. If you find yourself in this sort of situation, don't panic. The boards that are lighter in color will darken and catch up with the color of the other boards in a number of weeks just like the top section of the sample after I left it uncovered. But, if the cherry is much older/darker, and you're doing new work and need it to match the older wood, then you'll have to color the new wood.