I have some cherry here along with both red maple and sugar maple. There should be no mistaking cherry for maple.
Five or more years ago I put cherry scales on a knife, and finished with BLO. It NEVER darkened outside the difference the oil made, and is sort of an orangish color. I have slabs of cherry that dried in my shed out of the sun and they did darken a bit as they dried. I took a piece of that cherry, ran it across the joiner/planer, and it was back to being pink. With a mixutre of NaOH and H20 brushed on, the cherry darkened. Rinsed and dried, it wasn't as dark as I wanted, so I brushed it on again, and left it almost dry before rinsing. That piece with tung oil applied is a beautiful dark red. I have a barrel in a stock that will get that treatment.
