Good finish for cherry

[Ronak Shah]

I'm in the last stages of completing my cherry dining table, and am re-thinking my original finish choice. I had planned to use an Espresso finish, which would have resulted in a very dark color. The thing that (now) kills me about it is that I lose much of the grain and all of the beautiful color of the cherry in doing so. On the plus side, it should be relatively easy to match to chairs if I buy those separate.

What do you all think? I've put straight vegetable oil on some scrap to see how it would look, and while it's better than unfinished wood, it just doesn't do it for me. The table is all heartwood cherry on the bits you see, with slight differences in "redness" from different boards.

It's a mission style table, a 6' -> 10' extender. If you have links to good finished projects I'd love 'em.

[DonHo]

I love the "natural" look of cherry, I'd just use several coats of wipe on polly to protect the wood but let the grain show.
DonHo

[uglystick]

Keep in mind that the cherry wood will also darken naturally over time (months, years, decades...) I guess that's where you were wanting the look to start, with the espresso finish?

[Russianwolf]

move it to a nice sunny spot for a couple days and see what you think. It will darken more quickly in direct sunlight.

[msdny]

Stain on cherry is very difficult to apply evenly. If you do decide to stain, you might want to look into gel stains or mixing pigment (tinting) into a clear finish. This should provide the uniform color stained appearance that you may be looking for, but the tradeoff is that you'll be reducing the grain.

My own preference for a recent cherry project was to let the wood darken naturally with a clear finish with low-medium sheen. I went with a tung oil/resin finish (waterlox original). I considered a boiled linseed oil/paste wax finish which I really like, but I wanted something more durable that was child safe and resistant.

I have some older cherry pieces with an oil and wax finish that have aged and darkened beautifully with a natural deep red color. After time, the color variations in the wood are minimized, but it will never look as dark or uniform as an espresso stain.

Good luck!

Matt

[Ken Massingale]

The General Finishes Seal-A-Cell followed by their Arm-R-Seal is beautiful on Cherry. I have used Minwax Tung Oil Finish previously and it worked fine too, but the GF stuff is much better.
ken

[atgcpaul]

I'm working with cherry for the first time, too. I have
decided on thinned out boiled linseed oil. In a few days
I'll follow that with dewaxed blonde shellac and finish
it off with sprayed-on satin water based poly and rub in
wax.

Just that one coat of BLO looks pretty good right now.
Tung oil won't darken the cherry as much over time but
that's why I thinned out the BLO and why I'm topcoating
it with shellac and poly.


You show us yours and I'll show you mine--when it's done,
Paul

[retired wrench]

About a yr & 1/2 ago, I made a cherry coffe table, and after the final sanding, all I used was min wax neutral stain,, after it dryed, used a couple coats of johnsons paste wax.........It gets more beautiful as time goes by....It gets the afternoon sun most of the year, and the grain just gets nicer....
Next project with cherry, I will do the same thing.......

( If you want a pic of it, will shoot one in the afternoon, with the nautral light on it....).........Larry,,,

[buddyrough]

cherry finish

I just finished the first of two cherry bedside tables and used 4-5 coats of polyurethane applied with a foam brush. My wood also is 100% heartwood and the grain is beautiful. I've often wondered why people cover up that wood with cherry stain, seems a waste of expensive product to me. After the 2nd table is done I will build a matching kingsize platform bed.

Rod