avoiding darkening of cherry

[Dave Loebach]

I going to remodel my family room in either cherry or walnut. My preference is cherry, but I'm concerned that cherry will darken unevenly, particularly where surfaces are covered some or much of the time (in cabinets, on shelves, behind couches, in dark corners, under the tv and associated electronic boxes. etc.) Is there a way to eliminate this darkening or is Plan B (walnut) the best?

[Mark Engel]

Probably plan B. Cherry that is exposed to UV will darken. Not much you can do to prevent it.

Or, you could force the parts that will be covered to darken before you install those pieces.

[Thomas S Stockton]

Dave,
Don't worry about it. most of it will catch up eventually and you should build it out of what will look best. If you think about places like under the tv and other components it really doesn't matter since you will probably always have something in that spot. Places that are in shadow will darken slowly but you would never notice it unless you pulled a door from a sunny spot and placed it next to it in bright light. The shift is gradual and really not noticeable and spread out over an entire room it wouldn't be a problem.
Walnut reacts to light also, if you leave a walnut piece in direct sunlight it will bleach out instead of getting darker.
You can get uv film for windows kinda like tinted windows but is clear, that would help some. You could turn it into a cave but that would probably defeat the purpose of the room.
The best is to make it out of what pleases you and you would enjoy doing.
Tom

[Bob Wingard]

Cherry will darken with the passing of time, whether it is exposed to light or not ... it will just take longer for the change to occur. I recently planed some cherry that was at least 50-60 years old, and it was a nice dark rusty red clear through. Light will speed up the process, but it will happen eventually, even without the exposure.

[Paul Symchych]

I use and love cherry. Much of my furniture is cherry. One thing that works well for me is to use boiled linseed oil to accelerate the color change. A couple or three wipe coats a day apart and a few days in the Arizona sun gets the wood very close to it's ultimate color. There may be very minor color discrepancies after that but even under something that seldom gets moved like a TV you have to look hard to see the area that got no light.
Try a scrap with BLO and watch the color and figure pop.
Once thoroughly dry you can varnish it or whatever else you have in mind as a finish.

[David Thompson 27577]

Cherry will photo-react. And it will probable do it no matter how hard you try to prevent it. But if its an uneven reaction that worries you, why not force most of the darkening to happen before you finish the pieces?

Just put them out in the sun for a couple of days, after sanding them. I've done this, and it works wonders.

[David Thompson 27577]

OOPs -- haere's a second post, since I forgot to mention.........

Perhaps you haven't heard -- walnut is also photo reactive. To a lesser extent than cherry, but reactive just the same.

[Frank Drew]

Walnut gets lighter, cherry darker, but you can minimize the extreme darkening of cherry for quite a number of years by keeping it out of direct sunlight; I've got work here at home that demonstrates that. In direct sunlight, the darkening happens very quickly.

[Don Bullock]

Cherry will photo-react. And it will probable do it no matter how hard you try to prevent it. But if its an uneven reaction that worries you, why not force most of the darkening to happen before you finish the pieces?

Just put them out in the sun for a couple of days, after sanding them. I've done this, and it works wonders.

OOPs -- haere's a second post, since I forgot to mention.........

Perhaps you haven't heard -- walnut is also photo reactive. To a lesser extent than cherry, but reactive just the same.

I agree with David. By exposing your cherry to sunlight before the install it will darken it evenly. You'll still get some uneven darkening but as others have said, over time the heart wood will all end up the same color. Sap wood will still be very light. Yes, walnut will change in color as well. As Frank said it will lighten.

[Frank Drew]

I love the rich copper-gold color of finished walnut with some age. (Too much lightening from too much direct sun exposure and it almost may as well be butternut, though.)

[Mike Cruz]

My experience with Cherry is this: IF you stain it, you can slow down the darkening, but cherry darkens over time...just the nature of it. Walnut, on the other hand, lightens with age. There is a point when two pieces of wood (one cherry and one walnut) will look almost identical and it is difficult to tell them apart. Good luck with the project. My vote is for walnut, but that is just because it is my favorite wood.

[shane lyall]

Use some of both. Not a great pic and wasn't complete at the time (bottom cabinet doors didn't have hinges yet and glass was on order for upper doors) but over time the two woods will blend well. The gun cabinet is in walnut and cherry. I forced the cherry by laying it on sawhorses outside my shop for a few days. Wish I had a better pic without the craddle blocking it but it's at my sons house 1 1/2 hours away and I don't see him parting with it anytime soon.

On a side note, I built it for him for Christmas a few years ago. The entire time he helped me in the shop thinking it was for my Father in law. Christmas Eve he came over to help me "load it into my truck to take it to his Papaw" and it had a giant bow and name tag with his name on it. We spent alot of hours in the shop together on that project. For me at least, money couldn't buy that piece.
gun cab.jpg