Poplar edging on birch plywood

[Jim Stringer]

I'm finishing up a desk that I built with birch plywood. I'm going to be using poplar (with a cherry gel stain) for the desk top. The birch plywood I was just going to do a base coat of shellac followed by poly. I figured I would do the edging in cherry stained poplar to match the desktop. Here's my question: Do I stain the poplar edging before attaching to the plywood or do I just mask it after it's all installed? Thanks in advance.

[Prashun Patel]

It's a challenge either way.

If you stain first, you won't be able to flush trim it after installation.

If you install it first, you'll have a devil of a time masking it exactly.

You have 2 options:

1) Stain the WHOLE thing - including the birch. Then I'd install first, trim, and then stain.

2) If you want the contrast and don't want to stain the birch, then I'd use a jig to make sure the edging is perfectly aligned:
I just read about this last night: You cut 3 pieces of scrap from your birch and make a glued up sandwich, with the middle part set back by a couple inches from the tops. After carefully milling your edging to be the same width as the birch, you then put a couple of these jig blocks over the edging and the shelf to keep it all aligned. Clear as mud?

[glenn bradley]

PVA glue works best on non-finished wood. If it is not a penatrating oil type gel you can mask the surface that will eventually be glued. Penetrating stains will leech into the area, taped or not. I have done this using dyes and various hardwoods.

[Chris Padilla]

Life would be easier if your edging was cherry to begin with but this sounds like a good challenge.

If you're worried about the integrity of the joint between the birch plywood and the hardwood edging (for a variety of reasons, Glenn point out one), you can:

(1) Use biscuits
(2) Use splines
(3) Use dowels
(4) Use dominos

BUT, you will really have to dead-nuts on to keep the edging flat WRT to the top.

Hmmm, I'd just use real cherry...it will turn out so much better.

They have that new-fangled Frog Tape that is formulated to prevent bleed-through were you to attempt masking/staining after the fact.

[Prashun Patel]

Not sure banding in cherry would help. 'Cherry gel stain' usually looks more like cherry cola than cherry wood. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to use, just saying that it usually doesn't match the brown/amber tone that aged cherry acquires, but looks more red. So, if you used cherry for the banding but stained poplar for the sides, you could have an issue.

[Henry Ambrose]

Poplar and birch aren't going to match up. If you've not done the edging get some birch or some soft maple and you'll have a better chance.

Do some tests of the stain - I think you will find that Prashun's comments are correct.