Best durable finish for cherry?

[Mike Golka]

I posted this on the finishing forum but thought I'd try here as well
I will be finishing the construction stage of a solid cherry blanket/toy box this weekend. I will be using BLO to start with but then what. I have never done anything with cherry before and would like to have a natural looking durable finish.

Thanks

[Sam Yerardi]

Hi Mike,

As far as how the cherry will look after finishing, IMHO it's hard to make cherry look bad no matter what you do EXCEPT for blotching with certain stains, etc. Once you apply the BLO, there are so many different ways to go. Myself, I like shellac on cherry a lot. I'll do BLO first, let it dry a day or two, and then start with shellac. Two basic things to keep in mind - what is the color you're trying to achieve and what is the application? In your application, it will be a toybox that probably will recieve a few bumps and scrapes so you might want to use something more durable than shellac. Either an alkyd varnish, or a polyurethane varnish. Any of those for this application will look great. You could do the BLO, then shellac, then varnish for the final topcoat. The main use of the shellac in this case is to isolate the BLO layer from the varnish layer. Shellac works great as a sealer.

If you are wanting to apply a stain to even out the coloring or darken it, I would wait until after the application of the shellac to apply stain and I would use gel stain, not liquid for an oil-based approach. This will help prevent blotching, which cherry is notorious for.