Dye Stain for Kitchen Cabinets

[Josh Hulit]

I am about to start building a new kitchen for a client. The cabinets will be hard maple with a cherry dye stain finish. They saw a picture of a maple writing desk I made with this finish and decided that was the look they wanted. The product I used was a General Finishes "vintage cherry" dye stain (from Rockler). It was my first time using this product, so I'm looking for some advice before applying it to a large scale project.

Will this dye stain be durable enough for kitchen cabinets? Recommendations for a topcoat? On the desk I used a polyurethane topcoat, but was wondering if something else would be more suitable here.

Any advice on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Josh

[Jamie Buxton]

If that product is just a stain, it has nothing to do with the durability of the cabinets. Stain is only color. It offers no protection against fluids or abrasion. It is intended to be covered with a top coat. That top coat is what protects the cabinets. So your question really should be "what topcoat should I be using on kitchen cabinets?" You'll get all sorts of answers to that question on this forum.

For a project of that size, I'd be spraying the finish. I'd spray a good waterborne like General Finish's Enduro Poly. If you don't have a spray system, this might be the occasion to get one -- there's a lot of square feet of finish in a kitchen.

[John TenEyck]

I've turned maple to various cherry shades quite a few times using Transtint dyes. For as much surface area as a kitchen, I'd spray it on with DNA as the carrier. I make the dye mix lighter than the color I'm after and spray on multiple coats to build the color to the hue I want, usually 2 or 3 coats. For topcoat, I'd use something that meets KCMA standards. Both General Finishes (for sure) and Target Coatings (I think) make WB products that do. The GF Enduro, though not advertised in GF's tech data as meeting KCMA standards, is well respected here by several who have used it for their kitchen projects. Both GF and Target Coatings products are available on the web.

John

[Steve Schoene]

The General Finishes product is not a basic dye, rather it is a stain that uses dye in combination with a binder. This makes it much less versatile than a pure dye without binder. Even though the binder does do some sealing of the wood, it is far from being sufficiently durable for the workout that kitchen cabinets require. A durable topcoat is still needed.

[Josh Hulit]

Thank you all for your responses. I have done some limited spraying in the past using a pigmented lacquer. I have been wanting to start spraying all of my topcoats, so I guess now is the time to do it. As always, valuable insight and advice, thank you again.