Purple Heart and Cherry a Test for the Domino

[bolson]

Here is my first domino project.

It is a near replica of a table I have built previously.  The table itself is for an silent auction to benefit United Way.  It is made from Purpleheart (legs) and Michigan Cherry.  All of the wood was actually scrap and the most time consuming part of the project was working around some serious defects in the cherry and color matching.  The joy of cherry was the reward of the slight curl you can see in the photo.  Add a bit of a sun tan and some lacquer and I think the combo works pretty well.

The domino cut out about 25% of the time off the project.  As a hobbyist this means I was able to start the project on a Thursday and by Sunday I was spraying the final coat of lacquer.  The previous iteration took a bit longer because all the M&T joints had to be fit with handtools (I am a bit obsessive about perfect joints).

The best part for me was the dead on accuracy of the machine.  I only had to do two passes with a handplane (aka removal of about 0.002" from one apron) to get the top of the apron/leg assembly perfectly flat for receiving the top.

 

[Eli]

Nice clean work. Beautiful accent betw the two woods.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Nice work!  I, too, like your combination of woods.  Cherry has long been my favorite, with walnut second.  I haven't tried purpleheart.  Does it change colors over time when finished with lacquer?  I know from experience that cherry is photoreactive and darkens when exposed to sunlight, even if finished with oil based varnish (Minwax) or catalyzed lacquer or Watco Danish oil, less so if finished with nitrocellulose or acrylic (automotive lacquer).

Dave R.

 

[bolson]

Yes, in fact, I personally think the color of cherry is much better enhanced by lacquer than by any other finish type.

For the finish what I did was leave the table out in the sun for an afternoon to get the process rolling (about 6h.  After just that brief sunning it went from near white to reddish brown.  I then coated it with 3 lacquer and then it has been sitting in front of my patio door all week.  It has darkened even further with just this time in the sun.

The only thing I don't like about Michigan Cherry from the Upper Peninsula (which this cherry is) is that it tends to be a bit more brown than the lower peninsula, OH and PA cherry. 

BTW, Walnut and Cherry is another of my favorites too.