My wife is wanting me to build something that matches our dining room table. I have a lot to learn about identifying wood so am asking for help to ensure success. My wife acquired our dining table 40 years ago from her grandmother. I believe the table was made about 100 years ago. Family lore is that the table was handmade and that the wood came from a barn in Lenoir NC, which of course was a focal point for furniture manufacturing. Since the wood is a hardwood and not yellow pine or oak, I assume that the wood had been stored in the barn, rather than the wood was actually used in the construction of the barn. My wife thinks it is mahogany but that does not make sense to me given its importation. I believe it might be walnut (pic 1) or perhaps "aged" cherry based on the grain in pics 2 and 3. Welcome input from those who have much more experience than me. Thanks.
Help identify this wood in our dining room table
- Thread starter demondeacon
- Start date
Thanks. The hue or tone is what threw me. The wood is quite a bit darker than I would expect from cherry. But after 100 years of exposure to light, it has of course darkened a good bit.
Cherry - no doubt about it. The trick will be to match the aged color. Cherry can be aged rather quickly with a UV (black) light or there is a chemical treatment that works well, but I cannot remember its name right now. Stain or dye is an option but be aware cherry can blotch very easy so it is best to seal first and then stain/dye. This really helps to avoid the blotching
Looks ring porous to me from the pictures, which kind of disqualifies Cherry. I vote Walnut.. Walnut tends to get lighter and more red as it ages with moderate uv, with extreme uv exposure turns a golden color
That is definitely a cheery table.
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And I agree it is made from cherry wood. Nicely aged.
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And I agree it is made from cherry wood. Nicely aged.
Seeing the end grain may help.
Beautiful. That table seems to have been well taken care of.
I agree about the cherry part. It looks like cherry but zooming in on the 1st pic suggests to me that the pores aren't right for cherry. Of course the zooming part may play a part in that. Doesn't quite look like walnut either. How's that for being helpful?
The quest is to match it, so cherry would work as good as anything if you can match the color and reflection. I think the work will be in experimenting to reach a reasonable match when looking at it. The pictures show something in unusually fine condition for that presumed age. Very nice. Time to experiment.
Linseed oil will darken it and Potassium Dichromate or Baking Soda. I think Baking soda is less finesse on controlling the process, at least for me ......... probably me and my impatience.
I second this. I've seen a lot of sun bleached walnut on old furniture and this sure does look like it. Actually Walnut is classified in some sources as semi-ring porous like hickory and the oaks, ash and others like that are ring porous.
Matching that color is going to be a challenge. As others have suggested, using cherry will get closer to the color of sun-faded 100 year old walnut although the surface texture will be off.
Thanks. It is a beautiful table and somewhat the centerpiece of our home. It is rarely used, like our china, and really only at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the time we gather around the kitchen table (which shows much more wear!)
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