staining cherry??

[Bigmon]

Finally have a build about read for staining.
Wood is even colored nice red cherry.
It seems to oxidize pretty quickly and I like the duller look allot.
I have been told that Febrings die makes a good cherry stain.
But surly it must be thinned or would be tooo dark?
Any tutorials adrressing staining on here, or and one can tell me?
Thanks

[Hungry Horse]

I don't know how many times I have to say this, but, FEIBING'S DYE IS NOT SUN LIGHT RESISTANT! For a red cherry stain I would choose Homer Dangler's red stain, and thin it a bit so I could build the color in stages.

  Hungry Horse

[n stephenson]

On Cherry I`ve used baking soda mixed in water for stain. It will raise the grain but, gives a nice old color to the wood . Mix it and try on scrap wood , let it sit and it gets a little darker but, not black or anything that dark. Just a thought!!

[rich pierce]

Spray oven cleaner gives a brilliant red hue.

[bob in the woods]

Take a look at   www.flintriflesmith.com  More than a few guns have a "hot bees wax " finish.  I tried it on my cherry stocked Chamber's English fusil , and I love it. I used an amber coloured wax, and it penetrated deeply into the wood, and buffed out to a beautiful finish. About as waterproof as you can get, too.

[FlintFan]

Why would you want to add any stain to cherry?  It will develop, IMHO, one of the most beautiful colors of any wood on it's own.  Cherry is photo reactive, and will age to a warm, rich, reddish mahogany color all it's own after a number of years.  That can be accelerated by taking the stock and leaving it in bright sunlight for a day, PER SIDE.  That will give the process a good start, but it won't reach it's full potential for another 2-3 years. 

With a few seal coats of VERY thinly applied linseed oil, and a couple rubbed out coats of garnet shellac (or another top coat of your choice), it will achieve a wonderful color.  Some people use lye to accelerate the coloring process as well, but again IMHO, any additional dyes, stains, chemicals look gaudy on nice cherry in comparison to the color it will naturally achieve.

Do some web searches on finishing cherry wood, and you should come up with a lot of examples of what type of finish you personally will like.

[PPatch]

Agreeing with FlintFan, cherry will age beautifully all on its on. I am also a fan of the beeswax finish and have done three rifles in it. The beeswax is easy to maintain and provides a totally waterproof finish. PM me if you are interested in doing a beeswax treatment.

dave

[smylee grouch]

I had a cherry stock that was very light so I used a very diluted Aqua Fortis  solution and stained it. Did some test samples first to see how dark it was going to get and it didn't take much to make the samples black. One weak application was all I used on the stock and it worked OK. I wouldn't go any more that that though.

[c deperro]

Easy Off oven cleaner works darkens cherry well. Lye is what darkens it. If you use oven cleaner make sure Lye is one of the ingredients.

[Bigmon]

Thanks to ya all.
Very interesting.

[Tim Crosby]

 I like an oil finish no stain, the wood will darken with age. Danish Oil has worked well for me. TC

[Robby]

I'm with FlintFan and PPatch. It is a beautiful wood when aged naturally and a Beeswax finish is frosting on the cake.
Robby

[galudwig]

If you don't want to wait 2-3 years for the natural process, a teaspoon of Red Devil lye in a gallon of distilled water works wonders on cherry.  It speeds up the saponification of the natural oils in the wood that would otherwise happen naturally (over time) with exposure to light. It's milder version of the oven cleaner method already mentioned.  Successive treatments will yield progressively darker results (up to a point).  I use this process on butt plugs on powder horns all the time,  I usually follow up with some type of an oil finish.   

[Robert Wolfe]

Easy Off foam spray works great. Gives a nice rich red color.

[Keb]

I've found the cheap stuff from the $ type stores is best.
Only use the heavy duty oven cleaner if you want it really dark.

[Pete G.]

I mixed drain cleaner(lye) with water. it gave a nice chestnut brown to the piece that I used.

[webradbury]

How do you apply these lye mixtures? I assume wiped on with a cloth. Should it be heavy or light application? How much time between applications?

[Keb]

I spray it on right out of the can. I've found it reacts as soon as it hits the wood.

[Hungry Horse]

What is it in cherry that the lye reacts with? And, are there other woods that react similarly? I currently am working on a longrifle stocked in Madrone, which looks a lot like cherry.

  Hungry Horse

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I have only built one cherry stocked gun, and over cleaner had absolutely no effect on the wood's colour.  Puzzling.

[Turtle]

On my New England Fowler I found a cherry blank that was already lite salmon color. When I applied linseed it turned a great dark red.
                                                     Turtle