Dealing with cherry sapwood

[Wade Lippman]

My wife has given me two assignments:
1) Build her a cherry cabinet for the dining room
2) Get rid of the piles of lumber I buy at auctions that are filling up the kid's playroom.

Well, the good new is that half the wood she wants me to get rid of is cherry. The bad news is that it is not expecially good quality, with a great deal of sapwood.

I paid so little for it that I don't mind trimming the fronts to get all heartwood on the outside, but there will be some exposed on the inside. I have successfully stained walnut so the sapwood isn't conspicuous, but walnut doesn't get darker.

How do you suggest I minimize the problem of sapwood showing on the inside of the cabinet? Maybe glazing a sapwood a year after construction?

[Stan Urbas]

Wade, Wood magazine had a short article on a cherry item they made several years ago. The cherry had both sapwood and heartwood, but it was stained and sealed very nicely - it was very hard to tell one part from the other. However, that was just after the project was completed. They took a picture of the same piece a couple of years later and what a difference! The heartwood had gotten darker and the sapwood lightened. The result was marked contrast between the two, and an entirely different picture. Bottom line is that I'm not sure you can do anything that will withstand the effects of time (and light) on cherry.

[Rob Diz]

My experience with Sapwood and cherry is that it's really best just to cut it out, or you will eventually see the color difference over time as the cherry will darken with age.

On the other hand, you can make it a design element.

If you just ignore it, you will regret it.

[Lee Schierer]

Personally I don't care for mixing sap wood and heart wood on pieces that will show. I did this once on some coffee tables and end tables that I made and after a few years, I didn't care for the look of them, neither did LOML. As others have said staining cherry to match over the long term is at best a losing effort. My advice would be to be very particular about what shows on the outside of the cabinet even if that creates a lot of waste. If there was bit of sap wood on the inside or a shelf board where 99% of the time it will be hidden from view you might alllow it.

[Greg Funk]

If you use the sapwood I would find a finish that is UV resistant and prevents the cherry from darkening. That way if you stain the sapwood to match it should stay matched.

Greg

[JayStPeter]

I agree with the others. It's difficult at best. I prefer to avoid it. I've stained, dyed, and glazed it. Mixed results, but the bottom line is they are all obvious to some extent and get more obvious with age as the stain/dye lightens and the wood darkens.

[Karl Brogger]

Depends what you want to do. An ex-coworker of mine built a media cabinet for his tv/stero entirely out of sapwood. It took him a while to "save" enough scraps to do it, but it actually looked pretty cool just naturally finished. The appeal to me was that it was just something different. I'd say work it into the design. If its a one-off piece and doesn't have to match anything else all the better. Make the rails out of sap wood for the doors and face frame. Stiles in the darker stuff. Lay out the panels carefully like you would with Hickory and you could get a really cool result with the canoe shapes in the panels. Run with what you got I say. If you're using/making any moldings alternate the colours. I'm also a big fan of mixing species.

[Jim Nardi]

I routinely use it on the back of furniture. It looks quite good thru the glass doors.

[Jim Becker]

Your choice is to either embrace the sapwood...include it and enjoy the random color variations...or cut it out. There is very little you can do to actually mask it effectively, if at all. No matter what you do, it will always be noticeable if it's in the piece. Lately, I've allowed a small amount of sap to remain in some of the things I've been working on and the effect has been interesting...the piece feels more hand-made for some reason.