Replies

1. 
   jharveyb | Sep 05, 2022 10:58am | #1

   I suspect that you would be more pleased by the ash than the red oak. I think the oak would provide a muddy contrast with the cherry, whereas the ash would make a very crisp contrast. You could finish up samples of all three and check how they look next to each other.

2. 
   Pali | Sep 05, 2022 04:17pm | #2

   I agree that you might like a cherry/ash pairing more, though Garrett Hack prefers an ash/red oak pairing over a cherry/ash in his article on matching contrasting woods, but then he did not have already built
   cherry nightstands in his equation.

   Here's the link to Hack's article: https://www.finewoodworking.com/membership/pdf/9575/011211038.pdf

3. 
   esch5995 | Sep 05, 2022 04:37pm | #3

   Maple is my first choice, but Ash would definitely be better than Red Oak. My main concern is the difference in texture with Ash being an open pored wood like Oak, whereas maple and cherry are both tight grained and similar in feel and texture.

4. 
   jharveyb | Sep 05, 2022 05:09pm | #4

   If I were doing the cherry frames with ash panels, I would probably use the straightest grained cherry I could find, and have the ash have its bold grain almost like a picture in a frame. I recently did a nightstand with a walnut frame and quartersawn sycamore panels. I used the plainest walnut I had, and it seemed to work really well. I carried the theme over to the pulls.

   
1. 
   [email protected] | Sep 05, 2022 05:31pm | #6

   Nice job on the nightstand. I’m glad to see how the quartered sycamore came out as I had a portable sawmill at my home a couple of months ago and now have 900 plus BF of quartered sycamore.

1. 
   jharveyb | Sep 06, 2022 10:04am | #9

   I'm envious. All I have left is little scraps. My customer provided the sycamore, and I gave him back anything that looked like a board.

   Expect the sycamore to be a pain to work with. Mine was heavily rowed, making smoothing it without tearout really tough. I ran the face side over my jointer with a very light cut and slow feed, then scraped with a cabinet scraper.

5. 
   [email protected] | Sep 05, 2022 05:28pm | #5

   Curly maple and cherry are beautiful together.

1. 
   Jkatzowitz | Sep 06, 2022 07:21am | #8

   I'm a huge fan of Cherry and Curly Maple as well. Attached is a rocking chair I recently designed and built. Finished with wipe on poly.

   
6. 
   gulfstar | Sep 05, 2022 05:42pm | #7

   Also consider the effect of the finish and aging on the sharpness of the contrast. An oil finish will give amber tones to both woods and a clear water based poly will give less yellow tones, especially for the ash, my choice here. I mixed Hickory and Walnut in this headboard wanting to keep the Hickory as white/butternut as possible and the walnut not too dark, it worked with a water based poly.

   
7. 
   Ktm250rider | Sep 06, 2022 11:23am | #10

   Ahhh, I do have a couple maple logs that I need to mill. I thought the ash would look good and never gave any thought to using the oak...just listed because i had it on hand.

8. 
   geedubbee | Sep 06, 2022 11:55am | #11

   The oak will have red tones like the cherry but maybe not in the same range of color. Ash has a yellow/green base color so if used I would plan on dying or staining it strongly. Maybe it is from growing up in California but red oak is my least favorite of woods. Too mush cheap furniture in red oak flooded the market in my formative years ;-)

9. 
   user-509590 | Sep 08, 2022 10:13pm | #12

   Not to bow to the industry, but look at Thomas Moser furniture. Cherry and Ash.

10. 
    joeleonetti | Sep 12, 2022 12:52pm | #13

    Ten or 15 years ago FWW ran an article that showed a decent table of complimentary woods. Shouldn't be too hard to find it. By no means is it exhaustive but should be helpful.

1. FWW Editor
   ben_strano | Sep 12, 2022 02:30pm | #14

   Boom! https://www.finewoodworking.com/2010/02/11/the-right-way-to-use-contrast

11. 
    dberk | Sep 13, 2022 01:22pm | #15

    excellent article, thanks for finding as it can be difficult.

1. 
   joeleonetti | Sep 13, 2022 02:15pm | #16

   Oddly enough, the way I had discovered it was when I was doing some organizing in my office. I had an old pile of woodworking magazines (there's a surprise). I was sifting through them and saw this article and thought, wow!, this is really useful. So much so I made a copy of it to stick in a big accordion folder of useful articles and someday/maybe items to build. The all access subscription to the PDFs is certainly nice and I use it a lot. There is still something to be said for flipping through old hard copies. Now, if FWW would just lower the price on those cardboard magazine holders, I'd probably get around to formally organizing all the old issues and undoubtedly fine other really useful articles waiting to be discovered.

12. 
    sf1988 | Sep 17, 2022 12:46am | #17

    Not to rock the boat here because I enjoy mixing woods to create a contrast. What you should decide is, are you OK with your bed not matching the night stands, if so, then all the above comments are subjective alternatives. The biggest thing for me would be that you made the bedroom set yourself even if you had to purchase a little bit of cherry. I am a huge fan of Cherry and when I make things with cherry it’s just enjoyable to see it take on its own patina over the years. A complete bedroom set made out of cherry Justus makes a bolder statement for me. That is only my opinion though. I think regardless what wood you use, it will be outstanding because you made it with your own two hands. Love to hear which way you go, have fun.