Cherry HF - Suggestions Wanted

[BILL DONAHUE]

Here's one that needs some input before it's completed. It's a cherry hollowed form, about 10" high x 8" wide with a finial and pedestal of bocote ( I think). I'm not sure if I should leave the bucote natural or stain it ebony. What do you all think? My longer term goal is to not always use ebony finials as everyone else does but instead find complementary woods. From a distance the bucote looks good because it looks almost like brass, but closer up it doesn't look like a perfect match for the cherry. (Don't have a photo booth so I just set it on my harbor freight hydraulic lift and pulled the rubber pad over the handle - not a bad look.) Thanks for your input.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Bill - very nice work on the hollow form as well as the pedestal and finial! I understand your goal of not always using a 'dark' wood for the finial and pedestal but in this case I do think that a dark color would showcase the cherry and not compete for attention. The cherry will get darker with age and as a result may conflict with the natural color of the Bocote. Just my opinion - but for this example, I would ebonize the finial and pedestal.

I look forward to seeing what others have to say about this - as it is purely personal taste! Good luck with it!

[David Christopher]

I agree with Steve, beautiful form and cherry


Dave

[Jeff Nicol]

Bill, The form and finial are right on! I wonder if danish oil or BLO would darken the finial and base enough to make a difference. Also you could set the whole thing in the sun for a while and the cherry will darken before finish is applied. I can envision the age darkened cherry with the oiled bocote and I think it might work! But hard to tell with out some time or sun. If you put to much ebonizing on the finial/pedestal the light and dark grain might be lost.

To many things to take in account!

Still beautiful!

Jeff

[Alan Trout]

Bill I like the whole thing. It looks great to me. I often just work with what I have so sometimes it might not be ideal but it was what I had to work with. In many cases I find I like it better as time goes by. You never know when experimenting with different combinations of wood you may come up with a better result then you ever intended.


Alan

[Richard Madison]

Bill,
Any chance you could save the pedestal and finial for use (as is) on another project, and make a new p. & f. from some plain, ebonized wood?

[Jim Kountz]

I'll vote for the ebony look here too if for no other reason that when the cherry turns I think it would contrast nicer. Other than that though the form is excellent and I really love the piece, nice job with it!!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking HF Bill. I agree that the finial and pedestal are competeing with the cherry. I would either take some maple, make a new pedestal/Finial and stain it ebony and use these for another piece or just stain it ebony. BLO is not going to darken it enough and I think will still distract from the HF.

[Allen Neighbors]

I agree with the majority. Ebonize. The ebonizing will still allow the grain to be seen in the finial and pedestal, but only on closer look.
Very nice work!

[Dean Thomas]

This is about my 5th visit to this thread. I really like the shape of this piece, including the design and proportion of the base and finial. I'm always enchanted by cherry. Grain patterns are often amazing and the color (as with this one) is often amazing as well. The cherry in this piece is so pink and the grain is mostly rather subtle but extremely interesting. The bocote is its normal boisterous self, grabbing attention because of the super-dramatic grain/color combination that simply "is" bocote. What to do??

I agree with some of what's been suggested about ebonizing the bocote, or even maybe staining it so that the light stripes become closer to the darker stripes, making the finial & base less the stars of the show and allowing the HF to shine more. I don't know that ebony is the way to go, however. That might just be too stark. And as always, this is all offered as IMHO.

I do have a question for Bill: Do you intend to allow the cherry to brown out or are you going to put some sort of UV inhibiting finish on it? I really like the cherry pinkish flavor as it is. Actually, that is one of the few negatives that I have about cherry and a couple of other UV or oxygen sensitive woods that we work with. I generally create in the moment and watching that created thing morph into something other than what was originally seen frequently bothers me. Gorgeous color on a set of cabinets or any other cherry piece, set the sucker where it gets morning light and part of it browns out and one side of the entertainment center no longer matches the other, or the front of the HF is a different color than the back. :confused:

[BILL DONAHUE]

I appreciate all the help. I'm so new to this that I was not aware that cherry changed colors or that such a thing as UV inhibiting finishes existed . I'd like to keep the color as close to it is now as possible - it has a neat looking pink look with an attractive knot and one hole. Right now it has only been Bealle buffed and waxed. What finish would you all suggest?