I’m about to begin a dinning table and would like to stain it to match other pieces in the house that are made out of Birch plywood with alder trim. These other pieces have a light stain. I am tired of dealing with the blotchy problem with the above woods.
I am thinking of using solid maple for the dinning table. Will maple take stain evenly? I have tried the various “fixes” (such as shellac under coat) for uneven staining without much success
Any help/suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Jim
Replies
>> Will maple take stain evenly?
Generally, no. Maple is a wood that colors unevenly in most cases. While less a problem than cherry and pine, it is about the same as alder, birch and beech.
For these woods, I am generally sucessful using a 1# cut of shellac lightly sanded followed by a gel stain. Gel stains do not penetrate so that the cause of blotching is eliminated.
As always, test first on some scrap as maple is very variable.
BTW, when sanding initially, avoid sanding beyond 180 grit. Finer grits can cause burnishing which compounds the uneven coloring problem.
Aloha,
Try Minwax (there are other brands also) Wood Conditioner prior to staining. I recently stained 120 lineal feet of 5" wide alder base board and it turned out very well. Follow the directions, you have to stain within 2 hours of applying.
I don't use shellac under polyurethane, however, because of the following from the Zinssser Co.
"Shellac will adhere tenaciously when applied over almost any other type of finish. When used as a sealer under certain polyurethanes, however, regular shellac may not be compatible because it contains a small amount of natural wax. To seal wood before applying polyurethane and other finishes we developed Bulls Eye¯ SealCoat,™ a shellac-base universal sealer that is 100% wax-free"
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