Maple grain, did I screw it up?

[Mike Reinholtz]

Good morning! I have been working on some cabinets for the new kitchen island this week and yesterday started messing with the solid wood face frames. The maple plywood came out beautiful after staining, I couldn't be happier with that. My confusion is with the hard wood. I planed, sanded, and did all my prep work starting with 100 grit and finishing with 220 before staining last night. I noticed this while cleaning them up but now I'm worried I ruined something and don't know how I did it. These straight lines show up (grain?) on one side but not on the other, the other side barely takes the stain at all. I know maple is tough to stain so I'm using this gel stain from woodcraft. Is this normal or should I have done more to get rid of it?

Thanks for the help!

I should add I am pretty new to working with wood and this is my first project using maple, so far it's been educational...

[Phil Phelps]

It looks like it's been through a thickness sander with a clogged/burned drum or belt.

[Mike McCann]

you can get those lines on the wood when running them thru your planer. hard to see on the white wood.

[Mike Reinholtz]

Is this something that could have happened before I got the wood? I don't have a drum sander, everything was done either by hard or with a Makita ROS.

As for the planer idea, I'm not sure what went through the planer but everything was sanded afterward. Would this be a sign of dull blades? I really hate to think I ruined this stuff with crap blades. I ran it through a DW735.

Any ideas how to fix this? I'm guessing this isn't normal for Maple.


Mike

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

This falls into the thread someone began last week questioning if he needed to own a belt sander. Maple is probably too hard to vibrate out compression marks like the ones you have. You needed to belt sand the face frames, rails and stiles and panels prior to vibrating them. Even if you start with really course paper in your ROS, you will probably only succeed in distorting the surfaces and possible not sand deep enough to remove a problem like you have.
Those marks could have come from either wood chips jammed in your cutter head of the planer or a piece of chip that got jammed between the bed rollers and the bed.
All is not lost. Belt sand, vibrate and re-stain. You might try sanding maple only to 120 grit. If you have a sander with a tight orbit, you will not see swirl marks and the stain will have something to bite on.
fmr

[Rick Moyer]

This falls into the thread someone began last week questioning if he needed to own a belt sander. Maple is probably too hard to vibrate out compression marks like the ones you have. You needed to belt sand the face frames, rails and stiles and panels prior to vibrating them. Even if you start with really course paper in your ROS, you will probably only succeed in distorting the surfaces and possible not sand deep enough to remove a problem like you have.
Those marks could have come from either wood chips jammed in your cutter head of the planer or a piece of chip that got jammed between the bed rollers and the bed.
All is not lost. Belt sand, vibrate and re-stain. You might try sanding maple only to 120 grit. If you have a sander with a tight orbit, you will not see swirl marks and the stain will have something to bite on.
fmr

What is this "vibrating" you speak of?

[Mike Reinholtz]

Alright, I bit the bullet and got the sander back out. I used the ROS with a new 60 grit pad and went to town on it, following up with 150 grit. The 60 grit worked great and removed the marks very quickly. Kinda sucks I spent this much time on them, but I guess when I jump into big projects the learning curve gets steep.

I went back and started staining and found the stain takes much better when I don't sand down to the 240 grit. I know maple is hard, but I didn't realize if the wood is too smooth the stain won't take. Live and learn...

To learn from this, how can I avoid this from happening again? Is it common to have to sand this extensively after planing?

[Slim Shavings]

HI
I don't post much :) Not good at it Been lurking around forever. (thats why the weird name :) ) But now is the time to learn how to use a cabinet scraper. with a sharp scraper you can take those out. BTDT. You can practice on the piece you have. Once you get the hang of it its pretty easy. Just do it on all your frames. you can even work them out after you stain if some should pop up.

Dave

[Dan Forman]

Are you going directly from 60 grit to 150? That's quite a jump, most folks would go 60, 80, 120, to 150 or 180 to make sure the scratches from the last grit are removed.

A few swipes with a sharp hand plane can bypass all of that sanding most of the time.

Dan

[Mike Reinholtz]

I just read my post, didn't write that very well. I didn't jump from 60 to 150, I did make additional passes using 80, 100 and 120. The point I was trying to make was that I stopped at 150 and had much better luck than when I went up to 240 with the stain. I still have some pieces with the lines I didn't sand, I'm gonna try using a plane and see how I do. I've never used a cabinet scraper before, seems like a great opportunity to learn.

Thanks for the ideas!

[Conrad Fiore]

Mike,
Not to speak to your present problem, but to the different suggestions given to you about preparing a piece of maple for stain and finish. When you get some time, take a few pieces of maple and prepare them by sanding, scraping and planing. You will find quite a difference in how the wood takes, or does not take the type of stain you are using. Typically, sanding to 150-180 will give you the darkest stain take. Sanding above 180, scraping and planing on maple will burnish the surface and give you the lightest coloring of the wood with the same stain. These are things to be aware of when planning a finish schedule.

[Mike Reinholtz]

Conrad- I took your advice and before touching these doors I grabbed some scraps and played with staining pieces sanded from 60 to 340 and then some right out of the planer. Stupid as it may sounds, I had no idea that sanding to different finishes affected stain absorption. Now it really makes sense. This is the kind of stuff I think I should have been messing around with months ago, just didn't know I needed to. I really appreciate the advice, thanks for taking the time to explain. Seems every day I play in the garage I realize how little I know and how much there is to learn. I really wish there were classes I could take to learn this stuff. If there were cabinet shops nearby I would work there for free on the weekends just to learn. The only thing I didn't try was scraping, hopefully Thursday I will be working near the one in socal and can pick up a scraper. By trade I am a pipefitter, and it's details like this that warrant a 5 year apprenticeship before being a journeyman. Wish there was something like that out here I could learn from.

Thanks again for all your advice and time!


Mike