Cherry wood, i know its an old topic but...

[CastAxe]

I was wondering what a good way would be to finish a cherrywood pipe?

[Dixie_piper]

Goin out on a limb, I would think going "au naturale" would look good. Just buff and wax, maybe a spit coat of shellac?
Take my advice with a grain of salt, because that's just a guess.

[KurtHuhn]

The thing with cherry is that, barring a heavy coat of varnish or shellac, it's not going to get shiny like briar. It's just not as dense as briar is.

Personally I would would leave it unstained, sand it well, and wax it. Cherry will actually darken and take on a much richer color over time, especially if you set it in sunlight. You could use a light coat of shellac, but it's going to wear off of cherry in no time flat, so I's skip it.

[CastAxe]

Awesome, thank you! With that in mind i should be completely done with my first pipe in a couple of days and ill post some pics so you guys can tell me all the things that i did wrong
Oh and what kind of wax would work well on a cherry pipe, ive heard that carnauba wax tends to rub off or not stay on cherry wood at all.

[mathias65]

the only problem is .. don't even hold it with dirty hands .. or set it on a dirty surface. the cherry wood is so porous that it will absorb right into it and you'll never get it back out unless you sand again.

[KurtHuhn]

No buffed-on wax is really going to stay on a cherry pipe. Cherry has it's benefits however, so it's worthwhile to use it in some cases. I had a thought earlier today about using beeswax like they do on meerschaum pipes, but I honestly don't know if it would be worth it to do that. It might work, but we won't know until some crazy person actually does it.

[CastAxe]

I might just be that crazy person, i think im gonna try that seeing as how everything has been an experiment for me up until now, why stop?

[mathias65]

by all means go for it. for all it's problems cherry wood is fun to work with. it looks nice, when it's new, and it smokes well. it's great practice too. i have a whole box of blocks and can guarantee i'll be making more of them in the future.