I just ordered another Woodsrunner kit (yep, another .54) and decided to try cherry for the first time. I'm gonna ring up Jim and ask about his cherry wood - is it red heartwood or more white sap wood? Also, cherry can be kinda iffy with regards to hardness, need to ask about that, too. My dad was a fine cabinet maker by trade, but also a top notch engine mechanic, and when stationed down at Randolph Field, TX (Army Air Corps, 1942-45) during WWII, he carved a horse's head out of a large 14" block of cherry that he finished straight with oil, no stain, and the wood darkened lots over the decades to where it's a deep black cherry color now (my granddaughter rides horses, she's got the horse head). Anyhoo, lots depends on the genus of cherry wood and where the stock blank was cut out of the log, but I expect to just Tru-Oil it and let it do it's own darkening over the years.
Jim - yer gonna LOVE the Woodsrunner kit !!!
Side story on the horse's head that might be of some general non-trad ML interest .... Dad won first place in a crafting contest with that "Strawberry Roam" (yes, "roam" and not "roan", I've yet to uncover exactly why) and shipped it off to his brother-in-law, Uncle Felix, as a welcoming home present of sorts. Uncle Felix was a jockey in his youth, before Pearl Harbor, when he became a ball turret gunner on a B17 - but that event is a whole 'nother tale. Where did Uncle Felix come home from in 1945? Stalag 17. He was a "guest" there for about 2-1/2 years ... and that's a whole 'nother story, too.
