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Nice cabinets indeed! Even "just" cherry, in the right hands, can turn into amazing stuff. And it's a relatively low-chatoyance wood with - as you mentioned - a relatively rough sanding. I wonder what your wife's comment would be if that figure were on super-sharply planed spanish cedar...

Some news after sanding a few samples to 10'000-grit. That is, this insanely high grit provides a significant improvement on chatoyance! And this is also true if sanding is followed by shellac coating. Full detail here: https://www.chatometry.com/ultra-fine-sanding/ Paolo

Take your time, there's no rush at all! :) To provide some reference, most wood species average between 10 PZC (slightly visible chatoyance) and 20 PZC (evident chatoyance). Khaya is above 21, Koa is above 26. That is, after 1500-grit sanding and no finish. Adding finish allows to go above 30...

If you feel like supporting us with some samples just let me know :) All I can tell you for now is that chatoyance seems to increase as you increase sanding grit, and this is also carried on the finished piece. Recently we sanded a black walnut piece to 10'000-grit (which obviously isn't...

Awesome piece. So far Khaya is n.5 out of 105 species we tested, so very high indeed (PZC 21.5) Interesting. Did you notice differences between species, i.e. each wood prefers a different finish? We are running many tests on this, you can find them on our website (www.chatometry.com) under the...

This test is in our to-do list. The only issue is that planing is an art in itself, and I definitely do not master it. Would you be up for supplying a planed sample, whose chatoyance we will measure "as received" and then after sanding to various grits? Just 1.75*5*1/2" is enough, and it should...

Bubinga is fairly high (average PZC =19.2) in our measurements. Some examples here: https://www.chatometry.com/home-page/bubinga/ (all pictures show sample sanded to 1500-grit and no finish) I would assume that the waterfall is due to fibers taking the shape of a woman's curly hair...

This Koa panel I saw on a website reminded me of this discussion...

I wish I could see some of your work and make a gif out of it, because photos do not make justice to wood :D

I was asking because we tested a bunch of different finishes on some wood species, and both shellac and boiled linseed oil appeared to be better than nitrocellulose lacquer on Maple, but worse on Ash. This was a bit of a surprise to me, and I'd be happy to understand why... Speaking about...

Thanks. This sounds like a good suggestion. We are approaching the subject as researchers, but in my previous life I did some woodworking and I really loved when I saw chatoyance... So, in reply to @Droogs, our research is mainly aimed at characterizing common wood species in terms of...

Thanks again for the very interesting insight. I understand that your work is mainly on furniture an marquetry, am I right?

Yes, exactly that Paolo... We also found a lot of variation within the same species, but still some species are always low and some are always high in chatoyance. Given that there is a lot of discussion about the fact that - in some cases - chatoyance is a nuisance, maybe we should test...

Exactly. And if you cut a tiny 1/8" by 1/8" square out of that surface, it wouldn't be "wavy" but it would still be "chatoyant". Nice piece! Paolo

Very very interesting! I knew nothing about all this history. Very interesting indeed. Thank you. What would the effect of burnishing be? Would it act as an ultra-fine sanding?

Thank you. What is your typical use? (what is a "leaf"?) I guess chatoyance is good for your use, otherwise you wouldn't look for such figures, isn't it? We are running finishing tests on flame maple and also plan to run dying tests to understand how to maximize chatoyance.

Very interesting, thank you. I would guess that similar issues arise in paneling... Do you know what typical finishes are employed on veneered panels?

Thank you @Droogs What other species of maple do you normally use? Acer Campestre? Paolo

What do you mean by "Sycamore"? Acer Pseudopoatanus?

[edit: posted by mistake]