We all know that cherry darkens some as it ages. But I have the reverse problem with some cherry pieces, bleaching, no doubt due to sun exposure. I have triple glazed windows with two sets of low-E coatings, but they’re not really up to dealing with our high altitude Colorado sun over the long haul. My finishing expertise is somewhat limited, and for refinishing it is virtually nil — do any of you have experience or recommendations in dealing with such issues?
the first photo is of a kitchen island I finished about 20 years ago with 3 or so coats of GF Arm-R-Seal. Since only the west facing side has bleached, I’m planning to scrape and sand the deteriorated finish down and re-apply Arm-R Seal finish coat(s) to match the rest of the island. Any thoughts on adding a gel stain or other colorant prior to the final coat to address the bleaching? I would use shellac as a separator layer between gel stain and the Arm-R-Seal.
The second photo is of a 30-year old Stickley manufactured cherry end table. You can clearly see the unbleached circle where a lamp normally sits on the top; the left side is also bleached but not as noticeably. Stickley applied a light stain as part of their finishing process, but I don’t know what type of finish coat was used, if any — there was no apparent film build or sheen. I’ve just use paste wax to maintain a low luster. I’m still pondering whether to just refinish the whole thing, and if so, how to address the bleached areas.
Thanks for any input, Jere
Replies
Not an expert on this subject but it's an interesting question so I'll weigh in if for no more than to keep this one higher on the forum in hopes of better.
I'd stain it. Stains fade too with time, but they are stabilised to be less prone to fading than the wood. You also get the rich dark cherry colour without having to wait for it.
Downside of course is if it looks horrid then you have a lot of work to fix it.
The other perspective is that it lasted 20 years so just repeating the original finish may be all you need. I doubt the fading has gone particularly deep.
I have never seen cherry get bleached with age. If I were a betting man, I'd bet it was impossible. Sunlight makes cherry darker. Air makes cherry darker. Anything I've ever left on a cherry tabletop has left a lighter colored mark underneath, not a darker one, as on your table.
I can't really tell from pictures, but my first guess would be that the wood isn't cherry. It may have been sold to you as cherry, but I've seen that from a lot of manufacturers. They refer to the color, not the species, and it's reprehensible.
There's also a chance that the finish has oxidized, and that's what appears whitish. But I doubt it.
If you aren't happy, you'll need to strip the finish and then refinish. There are some good chemical strippers out there, or you can just sand. The door panels era a pain to sand because of the inset corners, so I might try chemical on those first.
Get a UV light once the finish is off, and let your tabletop and a door sit under that for a few days. If it's cherry, it HAS to get darker.
That tabletop's boards are a jumbled mess! Gustav is spinning in his grave. It's probably a layer of stain that's fading.
Yep, while cherry generally darkens over time, it will bleach out from direct sunlight. I think the biggest issue with the kitchen cabinets is the degraded finish. Refinishing will solve that problem. As far as the color is concerned, a stain, dye or tinted finish will get you closer to the original look if you're trying to match other wood in the kitchen, or you can let it go blond and not fight it. Good luck, Mike
I had the same issue with a cherry dining room set I built about 20 years ago. It resides in a north facing room in Northern California. In the first 1-2 years the whole set darkened and got that lovely warm cherry tone, but we just noticed in the last few years the sunny end of the table was lighter. When we pulled the chair that backs up to the window and compare it to the one at the shaded end you can see the difference in the photo.
I have assumed it could be sanded enough to get to "raw" cherry, and refinished, but honestly I am not sure that is realistic with all the nooks/crannies. We are actually moving this summer and I am going to build another similar DR set and this time we are committing to rotating it over time to at least even the changes!
Well, photo didn't attach...
Guessing this would happen at least less if it was stained, but man I hate staining cherry!
I have a set of cherry dining chairs and a window facing Southwest . The table gets pushed close to the window for spacial reasons and moved out when required. One chairs back is always facing the window and particularly in winter with the low angle sun it gets blasted. I don't know if it's uv light or the heat associated with it or maybe both but the back of the chair facing the window most definitely gets bleached out. I rotate the chairs from time to time and a couple of years ago recaned and serviced the chairs. I very carefully added some color and blended it in and so far it seems to beholding up. In the same room I have oak parquet floors, old style real stuff with 10's of thousands of individual pieces of wood. I don't know if you can even get that stuff anymore. The same thing happens to the floor and goes from light to dark ,south to north as it moves away from the window. I had to replace some sections of the floor, cause something happened, and replicating that sunburst effect in the finish so that the new wood matched the old was really tricky as the color changed by the inch moving away from the window. Amber tint and an eye dropper,refinishing hell!
I didn't do this but considered using an exterior stain on my chairs as those finishes,the good ones, are specifically designed to have some uv resistance built in.
Thanks all for the input. I’ll tackle the kitchen island this weekend and see if the scraping and sanding gets through the bleaching or if a bit of stain is required under Arm-R-Seal finish coats.