Contrasting hardwood for Cherry?

[Mike-W]

I would like to make a wall clock case out of hardwood we have felled from our village woods as a memento of the restoration work I have been involved in. I am still working on the design but it is likely to contain a Kieninger open face movement. I plan for the case to be fairly simple lines to showcase the beauty of the wood, its likely to be about 36” x 10” x 6” deep with a glass fronted door with solid side panels and back board.
Our woods contain native cherry, ash, oak, sweet chestnut, hazel, birch, alder, holly along with some other species, including softwood plantations.
I had some Cherry planked last year and plan to use that as the main material, I am also thinking of introducing a contrasting wood either very light in colour like ash or a dark feature such as Chestnut, (I have seen Chestnut ‘stained’ with a vinegar and iron mix, producing a blue/black colour).
The Cherry will need to be cut roughly to size so I can finish drying the wood in the house, if I used one of the contrasting species above I need to fell a length, split it and again dry it in the house.
Because the wood is not yet ready to work I don’t expect to make the case before the summer, but I do need to finalise the design so I can rough cut the timber to acclimatise it.
Any suggestions on a suitable contrasting wood to compliment the Cherry?

Retired and living my dream:
All things wood.
Mike

 

[Harbo]

Timber generally needs at least 1 yr per inch of thickness plus another year to season.
The timber your are proposing to fell this year will not be ready for quite some time.
Have you got a moisture meter - that will give you some indication of suitability?

Rod

 

[custard]

That's a nice project, I wish you luck with it.

European Cherry will naturally darken quite a bit, so don't just go for a contrast now, think about what the contrast will be in ten or twenty years time. Holly would be a superb choice, but getting pure white Holly is incredibly difficult as the high sugar content generally leads to a nasty blue/green/grey staining. Your best chance is to fell the tree in the dead of winter during a prolonged period of hard frosts (which we haven't had for a few years!), get it up off the ground and planked within a few hours, scrub it clean with a germ killing solution, then get it dried way faster than prudence dictates even at the risk of shakes and splits. It's a right faff with a high failure rate along the way, but if you can pull it off the result is a very special timber indeed.

Good luck!

 

[Mike-W]

The cherry's been air dried in stick on a breezy site, when i last checked (November) it was 16% MC, by rough sizing it and bringing it into the house for three months I'm confident it will be bone dry, I have done this a'plenty in the past. If I choose Ash or Chestnut i'll fell it before the sap starts rising, again i'll rough size it and dry it in the house, its likely only to be small sections like a beading or buttons or similar so i would expect it to dry quickly.
As an aside, I split some recently felled Ash 6 weeks ago and rough turned it for a froe handle. Its been stored by our hot water cylinder, checking the moisture content yesterday it was off the bottom of the scale. (I know it will be a higher MC in the middle but short of cutting it in half i have no way of checking it ~ I should have weighed it after i turned it, i guess!)

 

[Mike-W]

That's a nice project, I wish you luck with it.
Holly would be a superb choice, but getting pure white Holly is incredibly difficult as the high sugar content generally leads to a nasty blue/green/grey staining.

Thanks for that advice, I have my eye on a small piece of Holly that got accidentally felled when we dropped a chestnut across it, i'll give your suggestion a go (I can hide it in the airing cupboard to dry it quickly), meanwhile I'm also open to any suggestion with some of the other timber i can get.
I have used Ash a lot in the past and quite like it for workability and figure on the larger pieces, with Ash dieback just up the road from our village i'm thinking maybe i should include a bit of this in the design?

 

[Steve Maskery]

Any white timber looks good with cherry. Maple is the usual one in North American furniture. Sycamore here is in the same famiy (although, again, you have to avoid the blue stain).

Somewhere I have pic of a demilune table I made out of cherry and maple, but although I can find all the WIP shots I can't find the finished pic, unfortunately.

 

[Beau]

Yep I would go with the Holly and as you mentioned dry it fast to keep the colour. Alternatively something stained black or at least very dark. Did our Kitchen in cherry and maple with a black inlay. These colours work IMO

 

[Mike-W]

Any white timber looks good with cherry. Maple is the usual one in North American furniture. Sycamore here is in the same famiy (although, again, you have to avoid the blue stain).

We do have a little Sycamore in the woods, i have never worked with sycamore but from what i recall its a timber that should be seasoned stood end up to reduce the risk of staining?
Ash can be quite pale in colour although it generally ends up an amber tone, the only way i have managed to keep it 'white' in the past is to to use Osmo Poly X white tint. not sure thats an option for this project.

 

[Mike-W]

Alternatively something stained black or at least very dark. Did our Kitchen in cherry and maple with a black inlay. These colours work IMO

Thats why i mentioned Sweet Chestnut stained with wire wool in vinegar, i have seen this effect on garden furniture, the guy i spoke to called it 'pickling', its using the effect of Iron interacting with the tannins in the Chestnut to create the blue/black stain.
Im not sure if it will remain that colour or turn a horrible grey colour in time.
Another idea for me could be to use a very dark stain on Ash, very popular 30~40 years ago on Ash built furniture, no doubt used to mask the tendency of Ash to yellow on exposure to light.

 

[custard]

We do have a little Sycamore in the woods, i have never worked with sycamore but from what i recall its a timber that should be seasoned stood end up to reduce the risk of staining?
Ash can be quite pale in colour although it generally ends up an amber tone, the only way i have managed to keep it 'white' in the past is to to use Osmo Poly X white tint. not sure thats an option for this project.

Slightly different, Sycamore should be end reared so that you don't have to use stickers (lengths of softwood inserted between the stacked, drying boards to allow air to circulate), because you often get stickering stains. The Sycamore we all want is the bright white stuff that's sometimes marketed as "Arctic Sycamore".

Personally I'd avoid Ash because the very open grain will fill up with grime over time and that's not a good look when contrasted with the tight, clean grain of a fruitwood.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Couldn't you seal the Ash pores with sanding sealer Custard, to avoid the grime problem? Much as turners do before they put the final finish on (usually wax)

 

[custard]

Hello Bob, you could fill the grain on Ash, and that might buy you a few years. But eventually the grain filler will shrink, or drop out, or flake off, or the filler is soft enough that it becomes contaminated by ingrained dirt itself. In any event when I see Ash furniture that's twenty or so years old or older it seems that whatever the finishing regime the open pores have generally become blackened. Maybe a Scandinavian soap finish is a solution in that it's designed to be regularly renewed?

I try and avoid Ash as even though it's marvellous when freshly worked personally I just don't like that grimy look it always seems to acquire with age. I bought some spectacular boards of heavily rippled Olive Ash a few years ago, but I've always been hesitant to offer them for sale for exactly this reason. Recently though I took a commission for three pieces of furniture that'll finally be using it, but as they're destined for overseas at least I won't see them growing old!

 

[Spindle]

Hi

For a dark option fumed oak could be a possibility. For a light one, sycamore can have a 'fiddle back' figure which combined with the light cream colour can be very attractive.

Regards Mick

 

[Mike-W]

Hi

For a dark option fumed oak could be a possibility. For a light one, sycamore can have a 'fiddle back' figure which combined with the light cream colour can be very attractive.

Regards Mick

Had not thought of fuming, i did keep a bottle from my photography days but i may have got rid of it some time ago, if i can find it i could experiment - we have a small oak tree i was going to get milled that got pulled down after we had a hang up when we were felling the Chestnut.
As its a reaction with the tannin, i wonder if it produces the same result with Sweet Chestnut?

You also mentioned fiddleback in Sycamore, any idea how that occurs, is there anything i should be looking for before felling a tree?

 

[Spindle]

Hi

I'm sorry I'll have to defer to others more experienced than I - I've bought fiddle back sycamore but I don't know how to identify it in the wild.

Ammonia for fuming is pretty easy to obtain.

Regards Mick