On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:56:50 -0400, "CraigT"
wrote:

I made some shelves to go over a window in my bedroom out of cherry. I
applied some shellac to a piece of scrap and it's obvious that I'm going to
need to stain it to get that typical dark cherry that I'm looking for. Is
there something at the home centers that'll do this or am I going to have to
order something online to get that dark cherry I'm looking for out of this
cherry?

Thanks,
~Craig


I hate to finish, have never been good at it, complete the building
a piece of furniture and dread "ruining" it by finishing. Just this
weekend, I used the Thermawood/Valspar finish schedule for Old
English Cherry. It came out beautiful.

Saw some sample pieces at their booth at IWF several years ago and
always wanted to try it. So I did.

Down side is it is complicated and expensive. You may not want to
consider it for a single shelf set. I'm doing a whole bedroom.

Complicated in that their are eleven steps and the schedule contains
nine unique liquids, six for coloring, aging and accent, three for
sealing and topping. It is lacquer based, so at least the dry time is
very short. Took me two six hour sessions to do three pieces of
furniture.

Mine still not quite as good as I remember the samples but the best
I've ever done. Difference probably due to pro's doing the samples
with better spray equipment, particularly final lacquer top coat and
my reluctance to be too aggressive with some of the accenting steps
that impart age.

Frank