beech
#6
How does Baltic birch plywood take stain? I have beech and I will need the birch to look the same.
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#7
I tried a test with water based stain and was unhappy with the result. I wound up using shellac with transtint as a tone coat. I was trying to match walnut and it worked well. The problem I see with what you want to do is that the BB ply is likely darker than your Beech. The BB will take stain etc. just fine but I don't know how to make it lighter than it is. Hopefully my memory is off and BB is lighter so you could use a good oil based stain, transtint directly or a shellac tone coat. The tone coat is the easiest to make work.
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#8
Baltic Birch here is peeled white birch, and is very light in color, unless it's heartwood. It's a color match for American beech sapwood, though our locals steam beech to give it some stability and color.

Couple thoughts. Rotary peeled ply will never look like sawed lumber, especially like beech with all the little ray flecks. Second, when you put a stain to it it will suck up like sawed wood never can.

Practice your stain on some sanded scraps. Wipe on, wipe off with minimum time between and something light yellow/red. Pigment stain (oil) is your best option. Let it soak a bit on the beech.

Good luck.
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#9
American Beech

Baltic Birch

They look similar but, as said, they ain't going to take stain in the same way. Because I have spray equipment, I would dye them to get the same base color. You may and probably will need to use different dyes or a different concentration of the same dye to get the colors close. BIG note, I would not apply dye by hand to BB plywood. It will blotch something awful; know that from hard learned experience. Then apply a sealer, then apply a gel stain. The gel stain will further unify the color although as MM said the grain still won't look the same. After the gel stain is dry, apply another coat of sealer and then your clear coats. If the color isn't quite right after the gel stain and sealer you could spray a toner coat first. They are easy to make from Transtint dye in dewaxed shellac or Transtint in most any WB clear coat. If you don't have spray equipment don't use a shellac toner, use a WB clear coat base.

If you don't have spray equipment a less difficult route would be to just apply a sealer first and then a gel stain or combination of gel stains to unify the color. You might have to remove more of the stain on the BB than the beech, for example, or adjust the color on one or the other. Gel stains are easy to intermix to get any color you want. There's an art form here that requires a good eye, a good hand, and lots of patience. The good news is if you hose up you can wipe it off with mineral spirits before it dries and start over because you are working on a sealed surface.

John
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#10
BB ply will be very blotchy with a pigment stain.
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