Dark Stain - Flame Birch

[Dustin Brown]

I did some searching but didn't come up with much. I'm building a modern style simple fireplace mantel for my mother. She wanted to use birch and apply a dark walnut type stain. She wants a fairly dark color to at least match the general shade of the cabinets in the adjoining dining room.

I was picking up some wood and found a couple boards that are a darker tone with some nice flame patterns in them. We were thinking about somehow trying to get a dark shade of brownish/black, but keep the flame pattern standing out a bit. I'm wondering if this is even possible. I'm fairly new to finishing, but every time I have stained a piece of wood that had some soft of flame type areas, I always end up with dark blotches where the figure was.

Does anyone know of a way to do this properly? I was thinking about something I faintly remember reading on a guitar forum. I believe this person may have applied a few coats of heavily thinned shellac, then sanded the surface down well. After that, used a dark die to tone the wood. I believe this left the figured wood sealed and didn't absorb much dye at all, leaving the figure defined. Does this sound about right?

Thanks!

[Bob Wingard]

Pre-stain conditioner + dye is usually a good way to go ... I have had great results with Charles Neil's Blotch Control. Works great for me .. reasonably priced .. be sure to follow the directions, and apply two good wet coats and lightly sand in between. The objective with his product as opposed to some of the other conditioners is that you want to seal the surface completely, then you actually dye the newly applied surface. It's a lot like the old candy apple finishes from many years ago. First the base coat .. then the tinted but transparent top coat. Done properly, there should be absolutely no blotching ... if there is, you didn't use enough conditioner. Some folks have similar results with a few very light coats of shellac. The point is, your goal is to seal the wood without obscuring it in any way. You should look through the topcoat .. through the dye .. through the barrier coat .. and still see the grain of the wood. Enhancing or "popping" the grain prior to sealing it is another matter completely.. Many of the finishing authors and experts have procedures outlined in their respective books & videos on how to accomplish that ... I don't use that much figured wood, and have limited experience in that regard.

[Scott Holmes]

Brich is one of the woods that doesn't stain well. As Bob said, a dye would be much better. CN Blotch control works pretty well. It can still blotch if you apply it too thin or don't wipe it back properly e,g, don't leave wet streaks they can show... Wetting it, letting it soak in, then wiping it dry is important.

Practice on scrap. Pieces as wide as your mantle will show you the truest color/blotch.

[Don Jarvie]

A little late to this thread but here's my 2 cents. I built a kitchen cubbard out of red birch and birch plywood to match our Kraftmaid kitchen cabinets. I had no issues with blotching and the stain took well.

One thing I did learn was how the levels of sanding affected the color of the stain. I sanded everything to 320 and the stain matched well. For some reason I thought it was too light so I sanded to 220 in the top moulding and it came out way to dark. So I had to sand it down and re-apply the stain and got it close.

See what make the cabinets in the other room are and try to buy the same stain. Home Depot sells the stain for all of the Kraftmaid colors and you can hardly tell the difference between the ones I made and the ones we bought.

[Dustin Brown]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I don't have a problem getting an even color on birch, I use different sanding grits and conditioner as well.

These boards are flame birch. Normally when you stain and sort of heavy figure it will absorb more stain than anything else even with conditioner leaving the figured areas heavily soaked like solid blotches. I'm wanting to have a dark stain while leaving the flame patterns a bit lighter, if this is even possible

[Don Jarvie]

You could try to apply stain on the whole piece and wipe the flame areas quickly so they don't absorb much stain. Maybe hard to control and look crappy if not evened out.

You may want to use a gel stain and use very light coats to build up the color you want. This way you can control the amount of stain easier than a liquid.