Soft Maple looks dirty on parts of boards after planing. Not Plane marks.

[Ruth Ferguson]

After sand/sealing and stain (did 80, 120, 150 and 220 grits), it looks like I put two coats of the stain on parts of the board and the rest of same board looks great. The next board I started to sand looks the same way, like there is dirt on parts of the board that goes clear across the board. Like 12" of the board is white like it should be then another 6" it appears like it has dirt on it. This is all across the board not specs. Have a new Steel City planer and does a great job but after staining and see this unusual look don't know if it should be planed again or I got what I get? The soft maple is red leaf.

Thanks for comments.

Ruth

[Joe Dowling Jr]

Hi Ruth,
Are you hand sanding or using a machine? A machine can sometimes give that appearance of dirty wood. I like to hand sand the last grits.

[Ruth Ferguson]

Yes, I'm using a Festool 150/3 and their sandpaper. It seems when I hand sand with finger tips, I get scratches. I used a DeWalt small sander yesterday with 60 grit and it looked good until I put the sand/sealer (Zinsser) on it and it still showed the shadow. I also turned the board upside down and the shadow stays on the bottom side. Took it outside and same result. Today, I will try hand sanding with block at the 220 grit (Brilliant 2) and see what happens. Thanks for replying.

[Danny Hamsley]

Soft maple is prone to a chemical oxidation reaction when exposed to oxygen called gray stain. It happens when the lumber is green and subjected to relatively high temp like in the summer and high humidity with little air flow. The stain is a dirty light gray color. That is what it sounds like that you have in that board. Sometimes it shows up where the drying stickers were placed (sticker stain), but it is not always associated with the stickers.

[Ruth Ferguson]

Thanks for your response Danny. Got my wood from Schaller. This is definitely a first for me. Started with poplar but changed to soft maple. What can be done if this is indeed the issue? Also, another board I'm working on appears to have that dirty look in about 6" spans. Normal looking for approx. 6" then a 6" span of dirty looking.

Joe and Danny, last night in my thinking of what is going on I wondered about this. My husband cut a 2' piece off of a board because it wasn't straight for me to use as a scrap piece. Laying flat, it rocks just about in the middle of the board where the color is different. Could this be the problem?

Really appreciate your help!

[Danny Hamsley]

If you crosscut the board in the stained dirty area and look at the end grain of the crosscut, you should see that the color penetrates the wood. It is just not on the surface if it is gray stain. It usually does not penetrate all the way through, and sometimes it will plane out, but not always.

I did a piece with some gray stain blotches on the sides (sewing cabinet), and I sprayed an aniline dye stain that was the color of traditional colonial maple. For all practical purposes, you cannot see the gray stain, so it did not bother me so much. You might test a piece to see how it looks after you stain it if you are planning on using a stain.

Here is a picture of an extreme case. The gray stain was so bad, that I put it in a drawer side. This drawer side is 5/8" thick, planed down from 1" rough. If you click and enlarge the pic, you will see the gray stain. It penetrated deeply into the wood.

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[Phil Thien]

For the record, is gray stain a defect that would drop maple from select to another grade? That is, if I go to an expensive wood pusher and buy maple, and find gray stain, do I have to just suck it up or can I return the wood?

[Danny Hamsley]

I am not sure. Since a lot of hardwood is sold rough, you may not even know that the gray stain is there until you plane it. I learned to suspect when it is there as there are a few little clues, but some that I thought was good ended up with some gray stain. The good thing is that sometimes it planes out on one side. When I know it is present, I always reveal that to anyone buying red maple from me, and sometimes I will plane one surface so that they can see what it looks like. I am not a commercial sawmill, so I do not know how they handle it. I would assume that it is a defect that would drop the grade.

On the other hand, soft maple with gray stain can produce some unique and interesting patterns, and might be really interesting on some projects. The effect would enhance the look of the piece, not detract from it. Kinda like denim pine which is pine that developed blue stain in the log. Sometimes that is sold as a specialty product.

Not everybody has the same taste. Some people rave about air dried walnut with the sapwood to heartwood contrast with all the colors like blue, teal green, vermillion, etc at the transition. They look at the first board on the stack and fall in love with it (the stuff with the color and the sapwood usually ends up on the top of the stack after people have picked through it a bit). Some people snub walnut with any color and sapwood. The will go through a 750 BF stack for one board. They just want it to be a homogenous chocolate brown. Furniture store variety where everything looks exactly the same. Me, I love color, contrast, and wood that does not look like it came from a furniture store. Custom is custom.

I know this is off the subject, but another interesting thing about woodworkers is that there is one element that is willing to spend hours on building a project with crappy wood. For a little bit more $, they can get great wood and have a great project. I ask them why they would spend all that time on a project with vanilla or below average wood. Most times they have not thought about their time investment and are only looking at getting something cheap.

[Ruth Ferguson]

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Danny, boy am I glad you sent your picture. Here are two pieces of the same board I've been talking about. Hopefully they say which ones are stained and not but if they don't, the one on the right is with stain and the left no stain both planed and sanded as previously stated. If you turn the boards upside down the dark side is still on the bottom and light side on top. It doesn't even vaguely resemble your picture. Seems like I shouldn't complain??

Also, we ordered the select s2s red leaf maple. Not at all familiar with wood and rely on our distributor to guide us straight. I have to say that this isn't near the issue comparing it to your picture. However, is this a light issue that happens period?

Anyway, thanks so much for your input and the rest for sure. Maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist??

Ruth

[Danny Hamsley]

Now we know that you do not have the dreaded gray stain! Your wood, both pics, looks good to me, definitely no gray stain. Wood does not grow perfectly straight with perfectly straight longitudinal vessel elements (water conducting cells in the wood). What you are seeing may be the result of light reflection on the grain where the vessel elements are not oriented in the perfect plane. Here is a pic of that same sewing cabinet where there is imperfection in the grain direction because of sweep in the tree (a curve or bend from perfect vertical. This was a forest grown tree that I felled, sawed, dried, and made this project for my wife. It came off my property, so that means a lot to me and her. It is not important that the grain is not perfect because it is my piece, and that is a one-of-a-kind-piece.



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Your wood looks to be within normal variability from what I can see in the pics.

[Ruth Ferguson]

Your sewing cabinet is beautiful! You should be so proud of it and the history behind it. Know your wife must be too.

Thanks so much for the time and effort you gave to me. I so certainly appreciate it. I will continue on to my project and hope I can be just as proud of my first project as you are of your sewing cabinet.

Sincerely,

Ruth

[Danny Hamsley]

Thank you for the kind words. What kind of project are you making?

[Joe Dowling Jr]

Hi Ruth,
As a side note to this thread, I also have the 150/3. Although I think it's a great tool and the dust collection is very good it leaves marks on wood no matter how high a grit you finish with. The first few projects I used it on, after applying clear finish, it looked like I forgot to wipe the surface before I applied the coats. After picking up this tip, the next few pieces turned out as expected, using 220 and beyond with hand sanding. But I'm starting to think that what we're seeing as "dirty" might be 2 different things.
Sounds like you've resolved your problem and I hope your project turns out the way that you have envisioned it.

[Ruth Ferguson]

Hi, Joe,

Thanks for your input. Funny thing, I usually don't hand sand because I haven't had a problem. However, this time I did because I've heard and read so much that you need to. So I did hand sand with the 220 Brilliant 2 grit festool sandpaper. There is so much to learn about finishing it boggles my mind. LOL Anyway, will continue to hand sand and see what happens.

Thanks again for keeping up with me.

Ruth