trying to match stained/glazed cherry kitchen cabinets with another stained wood
szc
| Posted in Wood and Materials on
We have brand new cherry kitchen cabinets. They are stained and glazed a medium brown coffee-like color. We were told that despite cherry’s tendency to change colors, the finishing on the cabinets would keep them pretty much the same as they are now.
We are now adding a pantry and we want the doors to be similar in color to the cabinets. I’m nervous about getting cherry doors, which I’ve heard are hard to stain and will probably darken over time. What other wood is similar to cherry grain, but would be easier to stain and hold the color?
Replies
Staining Cherry
I would be suspicious of the claim that your new cherry cabinets will not darken at all, unless they were finished with something that blocked out UV light. If the cherry does not get a lot of sunlight, it may not darken very fast, though
Cherry is difficult to stain, due to the grain rising and falling, differing colorations, different hardnesses in the wood, contrasting sapwood, and other reasons-- and that can be in the same board. It tends to absorb the stain unevenly, even straight poly on the wood can blotch. A couple of thinned coats or so of dewaxed shellac (Zissner's sanding sealer with about the same amount of alcohol) will even out the absorption. Using a gel stain may help as well.
Other woods can be stained made to look like cherry, soft maple, maple, and birch are possibilities, although birch blotches as badly if not more. Cherry sapwood is actually quite difficult to distinguish from many maple varieties. If you can get a similar grained soft maple, that might be your best bet; the softer maples tend to be more stable and easier to work than the harder varieties. In a kitchen I did, I used a piece of birch plywood for some end pieces because the red birch heartwood veneer matched the natural cherry almost exactly.
Best though might be to get a piece of cherry sand it to about 150-180, hand sanding the final grit with the grain (the commercially made ones were almost certainly run through a Timesaver and not likely much higher than 180), sealing it with thinned dewaxed shellac, and seeing if you can stain it to match the color of your cabinets. If you can, then try the cherry doors. This way, if your commercial cabinets darken, the one you build should darken about the same.
Check the internet and FWW back issues. Cherry is a very popular wood, and there is lots of information about finishing it (and talking you out of staining it, like I am about to do:)
If you get the option on some other pieces, using cherry au naturel with just a shellac or shellac&varnish finish is absolutely beautiful. Especially if you get those blotchy and/or mineral stained boards.
staining cherry
thanks for the advice!
Pantry
A wood worker may be able to use doors from the original kitchen manufacturer and incorporate them into a pantry space.
SA
SZC red alder is often used as a good substitute for cherry as it can have similar grain. In fact I have a whole bedroom suite of "cherry" furniture that is really alder with cherry finish. Seen lots of ktichen cabinets that are also not cherry. Birch is sometimes used too.
The best way to match what you have is to use cherry and have it stained correctly. Period. Much of the talk about cherry being hard to stain comes from those with limited experiece with the more advanced aspects of staining. I've matched a number of projects for clients, and on larger jobs where I'm the lead finisher I'll be the one to match the hardest and most important items. I approach it going backwards and it's normally a matter of recreating the steps the original cabinet maker used along with a few tweaks to account for slight differences in materials and technique. With a little experience it's relatively easy to look at a stained object and see how much of the color is a wiped on stain that gets into the pores, how much of it is a glaze wiped over the top to color joints/corners and the most pronouced grain, and how much of it is applied as a layer of sprayed stain or colored finish coat. My personal favorite is using a transtint dye if necessary to adjust the overall color, followed by a wiped on oil stain to emphasize grain and get close but slightly lighter than the finished product and using spray equipment and the necessary colored oil stain to bring the color to the exact match. The biggest challenge I have with cherry is accounting for differences in wood color, often requiring slight tinting of individual boards so the overall project resembles the original not only in color but also the color variation. It's common for veneered areas to differe from solid wood and today's solid cherry varies a great deal, at least it seems to when it comes time to hand select the wood!
Using proper technique there is nothing difficult about matching the stain you have. Don't hire someone without seeing examples of other stain matching projects - it's a common task, an especially important task in your project, and shouldn't be difficult for him to come up with something to show. Personally I'd expect to spend 3 to 4 hours to fully match an existing cabinet, sometimes if I'm lucky it would only take half that. However, if there is a difference in the wood, or the original technique is somehow out of the ordinary, or if it's just a combination that takes a little work to get a good match, it can take 8 hours of preparing wood samples, pre-stain prep/conditioning, staining/dying, additional coats, color changes, custom matches, adding a little here or there, matching film thickness of the final coat, and wrapping it all together so it looks correct.
Alder is used a great deal because it's cheap and is close enough to many woods that it gets used as a cheaper alternative, but make no mistake about it that alder is quite soft and not phsically as desireable as cherry or everyone would be using alder stained to look like cherry. I'd also want to hear the cabinet makers thoughts on how he's going to select both the solid wood and veneers/preveneered ply to match what you have. The person should be able to talk fluently about what you have and what it will take to match it. As an additional precaution I'd want to have a fully finished door sample to give the OK to before any staining is started on the actual project. This should only cost you an additional $50, but is well worth it since a screwed up stain job is VERY hard to fix.
Like anything that requires knowledge, skill and ability it pays to hire someone good and that's not necessarily the most expensive so do your homework and make sure to check past projects that they've stain matched and talk to past customers!
Cheers and best of luck,
Don
Matching Old Cherry Cabinets
Hello Don, I saw your note regarding matching "new" Cherry Cabinets. I have a different issue, I am updating my 10 year old Cherry Cabinets. I will be putting new cabinets next to exsiting cabinets. I have been warned that if the new cherry cabinets match the existing at installation, they will darken and will not match the existing in a year or so. I think that you are right that I need to find a person who is trully a craftsmans at this. Can you give me some tips on how to find this special perons in Arizona? Thank you, Kathy
I guess Cafe Mocha Glaze is a good substitute of the cherry kitchen cabinet, they have similar color plus Cafe Mocha Galze is cheaper than cherry. The doors and drawers colors are nicely suited with the cherry.
For me it's not better not to stain if you're not sure it would improve the wood. The type of wood is not the only guideline for staining, your own preference should be the deciding factor. To get an idea how the piece look of furniture would look unstained, test an inconspicuous spot.
Sean
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