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My middle daughter and son in law want a dining table. My SIL wants to be a part of the build. They have 2 very active boys so they've decided on a hard maple top, and they want it a darker color to go with the room.
I've heard that maple is a difficult wood to stain without blotching so I'm looking for any advice on how to get an even result. Would dye be better than staining? I've always wiped on stain but I do have an hvlp sprayer that I bought long ago but never used so I have no spraying skills whatsoever.
I'm trying to minimize the number of times we have to sand the top back to bare wood and start over.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Cliff
‘The problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence
Charles Bukowski
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(05-04-2021, 06:06 PM)cpolubin Wrote: My middle daughter and son in law want a dining table. My SIL wants to be a part of the build. They have 2 very active boys so they've decided on a hard maple top, and they want it a darker color to go with the room.
I've heard that maple is a difficult wood to stain without blotching so I'm looking for any advice on how to get an even result. Would dye be better than staining? I've always wiped on stain but I do have an hvlp sprayer that I bought long ago but never used so I have no spraying skills whatsoever.
I'm trying to minimize the number of times we have to sand the top back to bare wood and start over.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Cliff
If you can spray then you can spray any dye color you want w/o too much risk of blotching. If you can't spray it gets harder but not impossible. Gel stains normally work well, at least with the really dark shades. If you're not going for something really dark, however, it might be better to first seal the wood with a coat or two of Sealcoat shellac and then apply the gel stain over that. Once the surface is sealed it won't blotch.
Practice on scrap until you are happy.
John
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Thanks, John. I already picked up some squares of hard maple to do trials with. Thanks for the suggestions.
Cliff
‘The problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence
Charles Bukowski
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(05-06-2021, 08:13 AM)cpolubin Wrote: Thanks, John. I already picked up some squares of hard maple to do trials with. Thanks for the suggestions.
Cliff
Cliff this is GF's Java gel stain on hard maple:
![[Image: ACtC-3fvcvcAikX6efVxMY6mRan3TMjR9kNc7RmJ...authuser=0]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ACtC-3fvcvcAikX6efVxMY6mRan3TMjR9kNc7RmJ7GzZaBeYB9u0e4XzzpAH_xprRjW3T2SNSU_AJ7K4Z8QNj89DNGnbrHpvAFXySuFlztR23vHiKpxRug125JxbmPvpOPUMHbRgjmAcIeva2oYL13KLVi5mUg=w835-h626-no?authuser=0)
One coat on the left, two on the right, with no pretreatment, followed by an OB varnish. I was trying to get the Pottery Barn look, and it will.
John
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John,
Thanks. I'll have my daughter look at that and see if it's near what they're thinking of.
Cliff
‘The problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence
Charles Bukowski
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I stained some maple shelves a while back. I also used a gel stain. It does not blotch like a penetrating stain, but the color is all on the surface so scratches and edge wear will show more readily than with a penetrating stain.
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
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I'm going to give my daughter some samples of walnut, cherry and red oak, possibly sapele and have her boys run them through the gauntlet. Possibly she can come around to an unstained wood, which would definitely be my preference, .
Cliff
‘The problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence
Charles Bukowski
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(05-13-2021, 04:27 PM)cpolubin Wrote: I'm going to give my daughter some samples of walnut, cherry and red oak, possibly sapele and have her boys run them through the gauntlet. Possibly she can come around to an unstained wood, which would definitely be my preference, .
Cliff
If hardness is the key criteria, Sapele is your wood.
Janke hardness:
1500 Sapele
1450 Hard Maple
1220 Red Oak
1010 Black Walnut
950 Cherry
FWIW, QS Sapele is gorgeous.
John
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(05-04-2021, 06:06 PM)cpolubin Wrote: My middle daughter and son in law want a dining table. My SIL wants to be a part of the build. They have 2 very active boys so they've decided on a hard maple top, and they want it a darker color to go with the room.
I've heard that maple is a difficult wood to stain without blotching so I'm looking for any advice on how to get an even result. Would dye be better than staining? I've always wiped on stain but I do have an hvlp sprayer that I bought long ago but never used so I have no spraying skills whatsoever.
I'm trying to minimize the number of times we have to sand the top back to bare wood and start over.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Cliff
My wife wanted the look of dark + no grain so I make a few kitchen cabinets out of maple. I dyed them with a dark alcohol diluted aniline dye to a dark walnut color then finished them a waterborne varnish. Both were sprayed with my cheap HVLP gun. Turned out great. One note, sunlight can affect dyes. The cabinets in question do not get direct sunlight.
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