Staining Mahogany

[Don Morris]

I'm making a 12" high x 5" wide Mahogany vase for artificial flowers. The corner joints will be done with my Keller dovetail system to produce a through and through dovetail. I would like to stain the opposing sides to show up the dovetails, and thus my question for you people who stain and finish as that's not my strong point. I know if I stain the two opposing sides with a Mahogany stain, the end grain will soak that up and be much darker. Would that be enough to show off the dovetails? Or is there a different stain for the two opposing sides that would better show up the dovetails? LOML also wants me to put an inlay pattern at the top to give it a little jazz. I don't see any problem with that. That's for any ideas to help show off the dovetails in Mahogany.

Don M

[Harvey Pascoe]

What I have done in the past in order to match stains, is to buy some inexpensive natural earth pigments (from Lee Valley, I recall) and mix my own colors with either tung oil or varnish. Its a quick and easy way to get a small amount of the exact color and shade you want. Because its a heavy pigment, it behaves like a filler stain.

[Scott Holmes]

Varnish will work much better as the binder than tung oil or any oil for that matter.

[Richard Link]

I think that you will find that the endgrain to long grain difference in pigment absorption will show things up well enough, provided you don't sand the heck out of the endgrain and burnish it too much (no higher than 180 grit, usually). Using two different stains might be a bit odd looking. Although you might be able to make it work, I doubt it is worth the trouble/risk/complication. If you really want a severe difference in coloration, you might just choose to use two different wood species on the opposing faces.

If you are going to be doing an inlay pattern using a lighter wood, be sure to seal that wood prior to staining (ie with shellac using an artists brush or similar). Nothing worse than doing a nice light colored inlay out of maple or holly only to muck it up staining it along with the mahogany....