What Sealer?

[rarefish383]

If I'm cutting firewood and see an interesting piece I'll rough cut it with the chainsaw and put it in the shed till something strikes me. Five or six years ago I cut an interesting piece of Cherry in a kind of trapezoid block. This morning I was looking at our tooth brush holder and thought I'd like to make something like it out of that piece of Cherry. This is the picture of the holder. I would put drain holes in the bottom so water wouldn't build up. What should I use to finish or seal it. Or, is this a poor project for wood.

 

[rarefish383]

Off topic to this question. I was bringing in some firewood this morning and saw a piece of Ash with nice grain, and the next thing you know I've got a new handle for one of my throwing axes, Joe.

[Tom King]

Of the two, I'd say the axe handle is a much more appropriate use of wood.

[ClassAct]

Hmm. If it was my piece of cherry, I'd use it for something else. It doesn't seem right to shape it, drill a few holes in it, and then seal it. Maybe I'd try to create an arts-n-crafts-looking toothbrush holder with small strips of cherry, or even set my hand to some carving (trying the carving first on a test block of some other wood). But it's your block of cherry -- do whatever brings you joy!

As for sealing, I'd say a wipe-on poly like Arm-R-Seal will do you just fine.

[rarefish383]

Thanks for the advice. I have virtually unlimited piles of stickered wood, Black Walnut, White Oak, Meta Sequoia, Spalted Maple, White Birch. My family is in the Tree Business, so anything that grows in the Mid Atlantic area I can get. It's a cool little block of Cherry, but nothing really special. The more I got to thinking about it, a wood tooth brush holder probably wasn't a good idea. At one point I was going to use the Cherry as an abstract center piece, might still go with that. Thanks again, Joe.