Matching Stickley Cherry finish #713

[Chad Bender]

I'm just about ready to start finishing a pair of cherry bedside tables that are replicas of Stickley #91-1026. I'd like them to match a bedframe that was purchased from Stickley. The bedframe color is 713, "Central Valley w/ Lacquer".

I spent a decent amount of time in the furniture store over the weekend comparing finishes, and even took in a sample piece that I had slapped a few coats of waterlox (with no stain or dye). That sample matches almost exactly the Stickley #718 (Morris Plains) on a piece that just arrived in the store a week or so ago, and so hasn't had time to darken with age. The store didn't have any recently arrived pieces with the #713 finish. However, comparing the 713 vs the 718 on pieces that had been there for several years, the 713 is very very slighly darker and more redish. The aged 713 is also considerably more uniform than the completely natural 718.

Has anyone taken the time to devise a recipe for replicating this finish? I've found such recipies for the Stickley QS Oak finishes, but not for the cherry. My current plan is to start making sample pieces using varying amounts of Honey Amber TransTint. I've never used this before, but samples online (which are inevitably on maple) suggest that a very diluted solution may get me where I want to be.

If anyone has alternative suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

[Prashun Patel]

If you are trying to match, I recommend that you ask up the food chain; I am SURE someone would be willing to sell you a quart of the exact colorant.

[Steve Schoene]

Commercial finishes are seldom done using a single color in a can, but with a scheduleof dye, toner, and glaze that can only be applied with spray equipment.

Of course, personally I would never be trying to down grade the finish to upper mid-grade industrial. I don't see the purpose of matchy-matchy finishes.

[Chad Bender]

While I tend to agree that cherry can (and perhaps should) stand on its own, the short of it is that we desire the tables I'm making to match the bed purchased from Stickley as closely as possible. I would make the bed, but fear that it is beyond my capabilities and those of my small basement shop. Also, the Ellis bed includes ~12 large inlays. These can be purchased online from various suppliers who are replicating traditional Stickley inlays, but the cost of purchasing this many inlays makes the project rediculously expensive (probably still cheaper than purchasing the bed, but not by much).

The current "household plan" is to manufacture as many pieces as I can, particularly cabinets, small desks, etc, and to purchase those few large pieces that would be very complicated to make (which strikes me as being very consistent with the original Gustav Stickley philosophy). This plan is not a problem with oak pieces because Homestead has produced recipies for matching the various Stickley oak finishes. I haven't been able to find anything similar for the cherry finishes. While many pieces in the house will be oak, the bedroom will be cherry, hence my interest in replicating the cherry finishes.

[Chad Bender]

For completeness sake, here is the recipe I ended up with (after more test boards than I care to recall). The match to the commercial Stickley 713 is quite good.

Transtint dye in alcohol, mixed to 1/4 nominal concentration: 3 parts Medium Brown, 1 part Red Brown
Sprayed with HPLV (Harbor Freight)
Overcoated with Waterlox Original (~6 coats: the first two brushed on, then sanded to 220, then two more wiped on, sand to 400, two more wiped on)
Rubbed out with 0000 Liberon steel wool

If I had to do anything different, I would likely skip the last coat of waterlox, or move it to before the 400 grit sanding. In some places, on vertical surfaces I ended up with a little bubbling in the last finish coat. It's almost like that coat of finish didn't grab the surface, and just beaded up. This defect is mostly concentrated on the backs of the rear legs, so not really a big deal.

Here's one of a pair.
197646

[John Morrison60]

Chad

I built a pair of footstools to match Stickley Morris chairs.
The Stickley pieces were Cherry with Madison (013) finish.
I made quite a few test boards mixing gel stains, (at the time I had never worked with dyes)
After several trys, I finally got to an "acceptable" match.

After I delivered these pieces to my family, and we lived with them for a while,
I realized that the style, "look" and structure, were the characteristics that we appreciated.
The finish match isn't perfect, but no one other than me sees that.

The quality of finish on the Stickley pieces is so outstanding, matching the flawless surface is
tougher than getting the color perfect.

Good Luck
John

[George Antoun]

Chad, I've been looking around for some plans that replicate Stickley 1026 and haven't found anything too close. Did you work from plans or did you just eyeball it?