Wood Inlay for Cherry peice - What to use?

[tim walker]

A fairly large piece I am buliding is going to be solid Cherry. The face will be 4" wide and 90" tall with 4" rais about 60" wide. THen doors will go insid eof that. Becasue of the shear size, was thinking about enhancning with some thin inlaly (1/4"). Anyone done this? Plan on staining a natural color.

So what would would you recommend that would fit right in with the cherry and not be gawdy?

Tim

[Jim Becker]

I think we need to know more about what you want to inlay to better make suggestions. 'Just a field of some kind or a graphic? Etc.

BTW, I'm "anti-stain" when it comes to cherry... ;) ...as are many people. You can't get more natural than that!

[Andy Hoyt]

Jim's right. Need to know more before advice can be tendered

But in the meantime, consider this photo

28262

Did this with PC's router inlay kit. Cherry inlays were about 1/4" thick and set into the sides of a maple quilt rack I built for a store display. Worked very well, once I figured out the nuances of template making so I could get all nine "patch" pockets routed without having to reposition said template.

Should I ever do this again, I'd strive to get the patches closer together and use a darker wood in the patch (or a multitude of woods) for greater contrast and visibilty.

[Mike Parzych]

I like hard maple with cherry, since the grain patterns are similar. BLO on the maple, plus poly gives it a nice amber look that goes nice with cherry, specially after the cherry ages.

And I'm with you Jim - I threw out the last remaining cans of stain in the shop last summer.

[Doug Shepard]

I kind of like paduak for inlaying into cherry. It seems to enhance the reddish tone of the cherry. Here's an end table with paduak in cherry
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=15882

I think bloodwood would probably look about the same as the paduak. Walnut also looks pretty good on cherry but I don't have any example pics I can lay my hands on.

You might want to consider going with 1/8" instead of 1/4". I did an armoire years ago with 1/4" walnut inlay on aspen/maple ply a little bit smaller than your dimensions. But there's something about the inlay on it that has never looked quite right to me. I've often wished I hadn't made it so wide. It just somehow looks 'too much'.

And when it comes to cherry: No Stain = No Pain
It just hurts to cover that stuff.:D

[Jim W. White]

I'm with Mike,

I think all types of maple look real nice mated with cherry. I've had good luck with birdseye maple panels with cherry carcuss, for instance.

I think Black Walnut looks real nice with cherry when first constructed but over time I fear the match would not be as desired ....as the walnut fades with age and the cherry will darken ...but that's just MHO.

...Jim in Idaho

[tim walker]

More after what doug did witht he paduk. Just a nice cleas 1/4' straight pattern around the perimeter. So far votes are running in favor of maple.

[John Buzzurro]

Just did a bloodwood inlay (http://userweb.suscom.net/~jbuzzurr/woodworking/projects/rosarybox/rosarybox1.jpg). I like the way it turned out.