Cherry Stain

[gunmaker]

Could someone tell or show how to stain wild Ohio cherry.  It's a nice color of medium reddish brown. 24 bore lite fowling gun. I've heard a lye or something that will give redder color ??   Old dog Tom.

[silky]

Hi,

When I want a darker tone on cherry, I use lye; specifically, EasyOff oven cleaner sprayed into a dish and diluted with water.  Multiple applications quickly darken/redden the cherry.  But keeping it pretty diluted allows me to get the tone I want through multiple weak applications without killing it on the first pass with a heavy one..

In assessing that tone, it's important to wet the wood with water or mineral spirits, as that brings out the actual finished look.  Just going off the dry wood.... that's a dull yellow-brown color that's not representative of what it will look like finished.

Best of luck!  Cherry is such a beautiful wood.

- Tom

[alacran]

Cherry is highly photo reactive. I know it is almost the first day of winter, but placing your stock in the sun will darken it. It will keep doing this , unless you put a UV inhibiting finish.
Using an ultraviolet sun lamp should darken your stock without the use of harsh chemicals.  I have never tried this because Sunlight is a free commodity of which we have ample supply.

[rich pierce]

Some Easy-Off oven cleaner has no lye in it. I found out the hard way. I use Red Devil lye. A tablespoon in a pint jar half full of water works for me. It heats up while dissolving. After applying a wash of lye solution and bring disgusted with how it looks I let dry overnight. Then hit it with the heat gun as with iron saturated aquafortis or ferric chloride solution. That brings the color out. The more concentrated the lye, the more reddish it will be.

[Cody Tetachuk]

The only experience I have had with cherry is that I made the rear floor in my '31 Model Delivery in cherry. I treated it with a Lye solution. I figured that it would not see much if any sun so went with the shade of final colour I wanted.

[silky]

Some Easy-Off oven cleaner has no lye in it. I found out the hard way. I use Red Devil lye. A tablespoon in a pint jar half full of water works for me. It heats up while dissolving. After applying a wash of lye solution and bring disgusted with how it looks I let dry overnight. Then hit it with the heat gun as with iron saturated aquafortis or ferric chloride solution. That brings the color out. The more concentrated the lye, the more reddish it will be.

Yeah, it's the stuff in the yellow can, with sodium hydroxide listed in the ingredients.  Never knew that about heating the wood... I'll give that a shot on my current cherry-stocked project -- thanks!

[45-110]

The dollar bill store has cheap oven off and it works excellent on cherry. Gives a nice rich color.
kw

[Kurt]

Does something need to be done to stop the reaction of the lye on the wood or does it just lose potency?

[Robert Wolfe]

I just rinse with water and it is fine.