Need help with stain/finish choice

[Ryan Cassidy]

All,

Kind of an odd request but I can use your expertise in identifying a finish that will get me where I want to me.

I built 3 face frames for mirrors out of Poplar but I haven't found a staining solution that meets my needs.

I'm looking for the Dark Cherry (dark reddish brown, not allot of wood grain showing). Not black, not just brown. I've tried 4 different Gel Stains (3 General Finishes, 1 Minwax that I had), 3 regular oil stains (all minwax) and have even tried with and without wash coats of #1 cut Shellac. I just can't get the right color, depth and coverage.

Any thoughts to stains or finishing solutions that others might have tried to achieve this look on poplar? I've wasted almost an entire 8ft board doing stain tests and now they are just sitting in my basement while I finish other projects and figure out what to do with them :-)

Cheers,
Ryan Cassidy

[Conrad Fiore]

Ryan,
I would dye the frames first using a dark wine cherry or dark colonial red mahogany to get the base color. Seal with dewaxed shellac and galze with one of your darker gel stains to obscure the grain as you mentioned. Seal with another coat of dewaxed shellac and the top coat with your choice. The shellac can be garnet colored to impart an even darker color.

[Ryan Cassidy]

Conrad - Where would you recommend picking up these Dyes? I'm assuming you mean Aniline Dye or a Water Based Dye? I found Transtint and Homestead. I'm pretty sure I can figure out either of them, but curious which might be best and or where you can find the colors you were referencing.

Thanks in advance!

Ryan Cassidy

[Conrad Fiore]

Yes, water soluble aniline dye. I use Moser's from Woodworker's Supply, Lockwood from Tools for Working Wood and Transtint/Transfast from Homestead Finishing. They all work pretty much the same, no one better than the other. Just a difference in color choices from the bunch.

[Ryan Cassidy]

Thanks for your assistance. I ended up ordering the Lockwood as they had the colors I was looking for (without a whole lot of mixing I hope) and had some others that I was interested in trying as well. For example, I have a large table of Black Walnut and Curly Maple and I needed some Garnet flakes for the Black Walnut.

But damm... ToolsforWoodworking and Woodworker.com both need to work on their site design :-) Painful finding stuff there. lol

Thanks again!
Ryan Cassidy