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About 20 years ago, I bought a quantity of rough-sawn cherry, and had about half of it thickness planed at the time. The planed wood has a beautiful red color all the way through. I planed some of the wood I left rough, and it is creamy white. All is from the same lot and has been stored in the same location. Do you have to dress the wood after kiln drying to get the red color change? What causes the change – ultraviolet light or exposure to air?
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Both exposure to light an oxidation causes cherry to darken.
Don't exactly know what you mean that the wood you had planned 20 years ago has a red color all the way through. If you plane it, it should also show a very light color. Your description of creamy white sounds like what fresh cherry looks like.
Try an experiment. Take a piece of newly planned wood, cover part of it and take it outside in the shade for several hours. When you remove the protection from the covered piece, you should see a difference in the color.
*Creamy white is not the way I would describe even fresh-cut Cherry heartwood. Light reddish-brown is what I would say.Creamy white is how I would describe the sapwood of Cherry. If that board is sapwood, it will stay about that color, apparently eternally. If the piece reacts to light as BBauer suggests, I'm all wet and you have heartwood. :-)Dave
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