A Compatible Glaze for a Cherry Cabinet

Experienced hands suggest burnt umber or burnt siena as tones that won't fight with cherry's complex natural hues. December 15, 2005

Question
I am building a display cabinet featuring some of the new hardware from Blum and a solid surface top, and have I decided to build it out of cherry with shaker style doors and end panels that have the flat beaded panels. Originally, I was going to use a very deep Bordeaux stain but after assembling it I decided that it looked so good that it would be a waste of some really beautiful wood to cover it with stain. I am going to clear coat it but I do have a glazing kit and I thought if I could find a good color to compliment the natural color of the cherry, I would seal with a coat of CV, glaze, and do another coat of CV to finish it off. Does anyone have any pictures or suggestions of a glaze color that goes well with natural Cherry? The kit I have has the basics:
Burnt Umber
Raw Umber
Cordovan Mahogany
Van Dyke Brown
Black
Burnt Sienna
Raw Sienna.

Any input is appreciated

Forum Responses
(Finishing Forum)
From Paul Snyder, forum technical advisor:


When I'm adding any color to cherry, I like to stick with shades that compliment the wood's natural coloring. It works to enhance it rather than change it. I would not use a mahogany or cordovan or walnut stain on cherry unless a customer was set on it.

For a glaze, burnt umber does a nice job. Instead of using straight CV as the sealer, you'll get better grain definition by using a washcoat with around 5% solids. There's some discussion of this at the following link: Related web page: Glazing Cherry


From contributor A:
I do a lot of cherry for our shop and it is tricky. I agree that you want to try and enhance cherry rather than fight it. There are many tones in cherry - pinks, oranges, greens, and yellow. I prefer burnt umber over burnt sienna. Recently I used a glaze similar to raw sienna that looked decent, but burnt umber is the best choice in my opinion because it doesn’t exaggerate the natural clashing tones that are present in cherry.