Hi, I am new to finishing curly maple. I have some recycled curly maple that I would like to use to make some picture frames for someone. The person would like grayish black frames, but wants to see the grain. It hit me that the few boards of curly maple I had would be just the ticket. Could they be dyed in such a way as the hard wood would be gray and the soft wood would be black?
Does it matter that I sanded of the old finish? It appeared to be shellac and I actually got most of it off with a scraper.
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Dying maple to achieve the effects you are looksing for requires more than sanding the old finish. You should remove it chemically. Paint stripper will work, but if the old finish really is shellac, then it could be removed with ammonia. You wood need to get the old finish out of the porous parts of the curly figure--very very difficult to do by sanding.
After stripping and neutralizing the surface, then you could use a black dye to color the curly figure. Then you could sand the suface, leaving the black in the figure, but substantially lightening the dense surface areas. A light dye application to achieve the grey color you want should get you to where you want. Just don't wet the surface so much with the second dye application that you wash the black dye out of the porous figure area.
Thanks for the reply
Thanks Steve, I was wondering about the old finish. That makes sense to strip it first. I'll give it a try on some scrap to see how it works out.
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