Below is a recent post from the Shadowboxguru Facebook page (www.facebook.com/shadowboxguru). I don’t want to beat the subject of Cherry Hardwood into the ground, but the message bears repeating every so often as most visitors to this website are new and unique visitors. I do have statements regarding the hardwoods that I typically use smattered about this website, but I know this is a very visually oriented website, and words are often passed up because the pictures tell the story.
Cherry Hardwood is Photosensitive…it reacts to ultraviolet light, as most wood do, but Cherry takes it a very noticeable level. Cherry develops a patina with age, exposure to light and oxygen. The Cherry Hardwood that I use is “Fresh”, in that it hasn’t been long out of the kiln, and hasn’t had much time for any patina to develop. Any change that has happened to the color of the wood has been minor, and will most likely be sanded out during the production of your shadow box or flag case. Your box will be on the light side when you receive it.
“So, I’m sometimes put on the spot by folks wanting their cherry boxes to be darker. My reaction is always the same…give it a little time and it’ll darken.
The amount of time this change takes depends on conditions, but it happens…Really!
To illustrate, early this afternoon, I laid a fern leaf on a scrap of Cherry wood, and set it in the sun…
I will clear coat my pieces with lacquer… almost never will I apply stain to nice hardwoods…Cherry is a wood species, not a wood color.”
The photo(s) posted here is quite real. The leaf sat on our experimental piece of cherry sat in the summer sun for 1 afternoon…about 7 hours…
I do not recommend that you do this to your shadow box or flag case as the conditions are quite harsh for the box liners. I did this though, to demonstrate that the Cherry Hardwood does infact change, and the change can be rapid. Enjoy this process happening.
