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Black Stains on Curly Cherry Veneer 
Question
 Forum Responses
From the original questioner: Thank you for the insight. I agree with your analysis that the stain is probably some kind of iron, tannin, water reaction. I am befuddled as to where the iron/steel could have come from. The veneer has not been sanded, of course. The platen was melamine. Surely it can't preexist in the veneer. At any rate, I took a cabinet scraper to the veneer (what did I have to lose?) and I have been able to remove enough of the stains to make the panel usable without breaking through the cherry, so life is good again. Thanks for your help.
From John Van Brussel, forum technical advisor: Most likely this is blue stain, which is caused by metal particles being oxidized by the veneer. It could be from steel strapping, the knife used in cutting, the dryer screens or any other metal object which contacted the veneer. From contributor J: I don't know how you can say that no air (oxygen) is present during any process. If there was no oxygen, nothing would set up properly. The source, although I agree that it probably isn't mildew or mold, could be any number of things. I don't believe you saw the marks prior to layup, so I'll discount ink or sticker or mineral (spalting marks) during harvesting. Sometimes lead in the tree from bullets will show up as these kinds of stains - you can see that not only is it in the spots, but is also incorporated in the figured grain, so that might have been in your veneer and you did not notice it until water was added. I have seen this many times before and I still haven't tracked down the source. If you're using a press to lay these veneers up, could be file shavings or contamination from that. If I were to guess, I'd say this is from when the tree was growing. Did you make a mistake referring to this as curly cherry? It sure looks like figured maple to me! Maybe this cherry has Vitiligo!
From contributor A: I get this problem with cherry and quilted maple. It is mold, and oxalic takes it away. Try letting the glue film over so it doesn't saturate veneer, or train a fan on the curing sandwich, or use glue with no water (polyurethane) - the best solution. More of a problem in higher humidity. From contributor F: The veneer is definitely curly cherry. I had never seen it so figured before, either, but I am new to veneer and have much to learn. But I do know cherry in its hardwood form. Thank you all for the information. I did not realize contamination could occur from so many sources. It was a great education. I did manage to clean up the splotches and did not incur any others on the last two panels. Here is a picture of one of the speakers with only the veneer finished so that you can see the curly cherry effects, although some of the colour of the aged cherry was scrubbed off during the finishing. The front baffle, with no drivers mounted, is fresh cut quartersawn cherry and hence has the pink colour instead of the cinnamon rusty brown of aged wood that has been exposed to light.  Would you like to add information to this article? Interested in writing or submitting an article? Have a question about this article? Have you reviewed the related Knowledge Base areas below? 
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