matching a stain

[Casey Carr]

Have a couple questions here as I'm no finishing expert. Had a friend pull a table out of a motor home that needed repaired. Didn't want to do much with it, just tear the formica off the top, put on another strip of edge-banding and then another piece of formica. I used maple as the edge banding.

Now I have to match the stain. Don't think it has to be perfect, but I'd like to get it reasonably close. First question, would it be best to put a coat of shellac on first? And if so, does the Zinnser shellac you find at Home Depot need to be cut with denatured alcohol? And roughly how much if so, 70/30?

Reason I ask this is because the table has the corners cut at 45's, so I have some end grain that shows on the end pieces of these 45's. I'd like it to be a consistent color all around, and I know the end grain will be darker if I don't do something with it.

Thanks for any help!

[Scott Holmes]

One question...

What color are you wanting?

Maple does not stain well; dye may be a better choice. Maple tends to get "blotchy" when pigment based stain is added.

If you are going to use stain, sealing it with shellac will hinder the coloring process.

Stain needs to go on bare wood. Pre-stain conditons are a way for the manufactors to get more $$$ from you.

To get end grain to match the rest of the piece sand it to one grit finer than the sides AND just before you stain it, wipe it with mineral spirits the stain right away; leave the stain only a few seconds like 10-20 then wipe off the excess.

Basically what you just did is fill the end grain with MS, so not as much stain could go into the endgrain. Prestain conditioners work the same way but they seal the wood using MS if you need a bit more color you haven't sealed the wood.

Maple still gets blotchy but the MS trick will help the endgrain and can also be used on the face or edge grain.

[Phil Phelps]

Why didn't you use the Formica for the edge?

[Casey Carr]

Thanks Scott. I'll give it a go tonight. I actually found a stain that matches pretty well, so I'm hoping I'll be fine. I'll definitely try sanding the endgrain to a finer grit, I had heard that before. And since I wound up getting a stain vs. dye, I'll try the mineral spirits on a test piece to see how that acts. I'll let you know how it goes.

I didn't use Formica on the edge because the original table didn't have it.