advice needed with beech wood

[Jerry Nettrour]

Does anyone have experience finishing beech wood? I have only dealt with oak and hard maple. Oak is easy and stains evenly. Maple is always more difficult and allows less room for error in sanding / preperation process. I have an upcoming kitchen/customer who is trying to decide between hard maple, beech wood, and possible going with a hickory with no stain and just a lacquer finish. I have hoped for a nice alternative to hard maple because I don't really like finishing maple. So what about beech wood. Does anyone know how well beechwood machines on a shaper/router table and how difficult it is to finish???

Thanks and happy and safe woodworking to everyone.

Jerry

[glenn bradley]

I have used beech for vise jaws and jewelry boxes. It take oil very consistently in my experience but I chose pieces with very uniform grain. Beech seems to be mostly uniform so that shouldn't be a problem.

The grain is quite tight but the color change with the oil is still distinct. I don't have any shots of the larger pieces handy but this (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=81820&thumb=1&d=1203199627) is a box about 4" square with just BLO and wax. I picked the "wildest" grain pattern I had for this piece and it is still pretty sublime.


Color without oil:

[Jerry Nettrour]

Thanks for the response. Does anyone else have any experience with staining beech wood. I really would love to give beech wood a try. Our current customer we are building a built in wall unit for, they want me to match their current kitchen cabinets in stain color. Their cabinets are built out of beech wood they told me and they strongly resemble the look of a pretty stained maple. Also, here in my area I can get beech wood for 2.20 a bf but I spend 3.20 a bf for hard clear maple.

All advice is appreciated. Always nice to learn from other people rather than trial and 'oh no!'

Jerry

[Frank Hagan]

I used it for a bathroom vanity and repairing a library table that had a very dark stain (it was the only wood I could afford in a 14" wide plank!) I also used it for uprights on a stereo rack that was just oiled.

Both of the larger pieces were stained dark with Minwax Red Mahogany stain. The beech is even grained and takes stain better than oak IMHO, and I didn't find any need for using a sealer before staining. The grain does raise a tiny bit, but is easily taken care of with light application of 0000 wool or the equivalent 3m pad (green? white? I can never remember). I was able to do multiple applications to darken the color without any blotching.

The stereo rack uprights turned out a very nice "honey oak" type of color with a few applications of BLO. Its very easy to work with; cuts easily, planes and sands well.

[Jerry Nettrour]

Thanks, I am going to try hard to sell it to my next kitchen customer. It is cheaper then maple and when I saw a kitchen done in Beech wood I realized just how pretty that wood is when stained. They had a rich cherry stain on it and it looked awesome. We typically stain our cabinets with customer's choice and then apply a lacquer finish. Thanks, Jerry