Sanding Cherry

[Joe Von Kaenel]

Hello,

I am building end tables out of cherry. My understanding is, if you don't sand cherry enough, when you stain the wood it will turn black. I have sanded it with 120 grit, 220 grit and 320 grit. It is really smooth, but I don't want black patches when I stain the wood.

My question is: How do you know if you have sanded the wood enough? Thanks for the help.

Joe

[Jim Becker]

The simplest solution is to not stain the cherry! LOL (some of us consider staining cherry sinful...) But as to your specific question, how far you take the sanding with a given species is relative to the properties of that species as well as the type of coloring agent you intend to use. Close-grained woods that are sanded too far will not take a pigment based stain very well at all and will tend to look terrible. The same fine sanding used with dyes is usually just fine.

While I don't color cherry, I do color maple from time to time using dyes, and I sand up through 180 with perfectly good results. I don't go to 220 or 320 unless I'm using just an oil and wax finish.

[Brian Peters]

For me 320 is too much, you will close the grain and it often leads to trouble. For me its 120 & 150, 220 maybe but max. Cherry like maple is notorious for blotching or having color differences especially if you have sap mixed in with heartwood. You know if you've sanded enough when there are no cross grain scratches and it looks good under different light. It helps to check it at an angle, any deep cross scratches will show up once stained so its important to sand carefully with tougher grits and well with finer. Remember, you don't have to make it "polished" or smooth as a baby's behind before finish, even for a primer its actually a bad thing because the finish won't adhere well to it. Sand it smooth take out the scratches and look into spraying a wash coat, thinned with your stain, once sealed and scuffed tone your topcoat with the stain so it goes on very evenly. And remember it will get much darker over time! ;)

[Brian Peters]

I agree with Jim too. Cherry is a beautiful wood naturally; if you select clear sap free lumber I wouldn't stain it, but if its uneven color and the boards are not well matched a rich cherry stain helps even things out.

[Leo Graywacz]

Use a stain conditioner, it is essentially stain with no pigment. Use the conditioner and let it dry thoroughly. Then when you stain with a pigment it will slow the absorption of the pigments into the grain, and you will have better control. The only time you need to sand past 220 is if you are going to be oiling the furniture. Then you should go up to 600.

[Don Bullock]

Before you decide to stain or dye cherry you need to be aware that the wood will darken over time especially if it is exposed to UV light from the Sun. How much the cherry will darken will depend on many factors including the amount of UV rays it is exposed to and the cherry you use. Not all cherry darkens the same and sap wood doesn't darken much at all.

I was hoping that Jim would chime in on this post. When I was making a cherry table last year he posted information about finishing cherry starting with BLO (boiled linseed oil) and following that up with shellac. The BLO really makes the beauty of the grain stand out. I used the BLO, but topped it off with lacquer as suggested by some others since I've never used shellac. The table came out great and has darkened to a beautiful color without any stain. I would suggest doing that on a sample of wood so that you can see the final result no matter what you decide to use for your finish. If you have the time you might put a piece of the wood in the sunlight or in the room where the furniture will go to see how much it will darken. With cherry that's the only way you'll know what the final piece of furniture will look like.

[Joe Jensen]

You might also want to do a little reading on stain versus dye. Stain is mostly pigment (ground up minerals) suspended in a material to let you apply it. It colors the wood mainly by depositing a thin layer of this powdered mineral on the surface. If the grain is open, more of the mineral sits in the grain making it darker than the rest. Some stains have a dye in the carrier too.

Dye on the other hand colors the cells of the wood. There is no pigment or ground up powder in dye.

Many woods have a beautiful shimmer called chatoyance. Stain hides this because the pigments obscure the surface. Dyes do not do that.

Some people let to make the grain "POP" by doing something that colors the figured areas more. IMHO this obsures the natural chatoyance. Dye is a much less obscuring way to color the wood. Get some crotch or curl figure and see what happens with stain and with dye and then make your decision.

Here is a piece with killer chatoyance and shellac only. The darker parts of the grain are just where the light hits it differently. When you shift your viewing position, the dark areas become light and the light areas become dark. If I use Boiled linseed oil first like may suggest, the dark areas would always be dark, and the light areas would always be light. I wonder how many who use BLO have tried without?

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w99/AZEngineer/_VIV4394.jpg

[Victor Stearns]

Greetings,
We typically sand to what my daughter calls soft 220 grit. This just means that she refuses to get a new piece of sandpaper and now the paper that is very worn. This does lead to an amazing surface when she is done.
We do not stain the cherry and use only a natural poly, or oil finish. The results great. Some will tell you about the blotchiness of the wood. We have not had the issue.
Cherry is amazing in the beauty of the grain. Some say they like a very dark cherry, I say just wait 20-years!
Good Luck
Victor

[Brian Peters]

That's a beautiful table, shows the real marvelous luster of cherry with just a clear finish.

[Frank Drew]

The simplest solution is to not stain the cherry! LOL (some of us consider staining cherry sinful...)

I finally came to that conclusion years ago and decided never again to stain/dye cherry. It turns a wonderful color all by itself with a little time; staining or dying locks in that (artificial) color and the wood never improves, IMO.

Knockout figured maple, Joe, thanks for the picture.