Staining hard maple

[Brian Runau]

I am planning on staining some hard maple for a fireplace hearth surround to go with a prefinished floor soon to be installed. I have their water based stain to match. I have always heard maple can be difficult to stain. Any tricks suggestions appreciated. Brian

[Jim Becker]

When you use a water and/or alcohol soluble dye, you can "work your way up" to the intensity and color you want. Be patient and work it out on scrap of the same material, sanded/scraped to the same level as your final project and also include at least one coat of the top coat finish in your testing because it affects color, sometimes in a very meaningful way. Be sure you fully document each test piece so you can reproduce "the winner" on the real project.

[Mel Fulks]

It’s difficult to stain with oil, since it can be a splotchy mess. “Oil bad ! Water goodt”. Raise the grain with water first and sand off the “whiskers”.

[John TenEyck]

Maple can be a pain to stain no matter if the stain is oil or water based. I much prefer to spray dye or toner in order to get a consistent, uniform color. If I had to do it by hand, I would first make a test sample to see if the wood blotches. If it does, I would seal the wood and then use a gel stain. That will allow you to control the intensity of the color by how much you wipe off and give you even color without blotching, and if you don't like it you can wipe it off and start over.

John

[roger wiegand]

I have vastly more success with dyes (eg TransTint) than with pigment stains. Spraying makes for very uniform application. I've also had good success with flooding the surface and then wiping off the excess. I prefer to use alcohol as the solvent rather than water.

I must suffer from "blotch blindness". I've dyed lots of maple and just don't ever see it. A number of times when people have showed me a piece and complained about blotching what I see is a piece of stunningly figured wood-- often inappropriately dropped in the middle of a plain maple panel.

[Jim Becker]

I'm "blotch blind", too, Roger.

[John TenEyck]

I have vastly more success with dyes (eg TransTint) than with pigment stains. Spraying makes for very uniform application. I've also had good success with flooding the surface and then wiping off the excess. I prefer to use alcohol as the solvent rather than water.

I must suffer from "blotch blindness". I've dyed lots of maple and just don't ever see it. A number of times when people have showed me a piece and complained about blotching what I see is a piece of stunningly figured wood-- often inappropriately dropped in the middle of a plain maple panel.


If you spray the dye with no excess, it won't blotch. It only blotches when there is excess dye that gets absorbed into the more porous areas.

John

[Kent A Bathurst]

I may be missing something here, but....

For blotch-prone stuff, like cherry, curly cherry, and curly maple, I always start the regimen with a couple coats of 3/4# extra pale/platina dewaxed shellac, followed by 600g scuff coat. Always has solved blotch for me. To be honest, I put a thin-thin-thin application of BLO on first thing to pop the curl. Then the shellac seal-coat.

Never did any finish to HM other than ebonize, so I can't speak directly to that critter.

[John TenEyck]

I may be missing something here, but....

For blotch-prone stuff, like cherry, curly cherry, and curly maple, I always start the regimen with a couple coats of 3/4# extra pale/platina dewaxed shellac, followed by 600g scuff coat. Always has solved blotch for me. To be honest, I put a thin-thin-thin application of BLO on first thing to pop the curl. Then the shellac seal-coat.

Never did any finish to HM other than ebonize, so I can't speak directly to that critter.

There are usually several options to do something. If you don't have spray equipment the method you outlined above may work. Surprisingly, I found that Sealcoat shellac and BLO caused blotching on the cherry test samples I made, with the combination of both being the worst.

Arm-R-Seal gloss on the left, Sealcoat under ARS in the middle, and BLO on the right top and BLO + Sealcoat on the bottom right.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AJFCJaVCC66sYo11aWymbvkzasHcWwv-mrXr37_AyQ5ElZYC0znvBHJx-Fuiz2NJX34UVy3OyqAnth60qPi60NSE_A46wDVD7Qkz1LkDhSy 9PjNB4IorAjS2HNxRgJiAxnD2cLvwzJY0N45DTK7fY3Hd7CIoD g=w1190-h893-s-no?authuser=1

John

[Kent A Bathurst]

There are usually several options to do something. If you don't have spray equipment the method you outlined above may work. Surprisingly, I found that Sealcoat shellac and BLO caused blotching on the cherry test samples I made, with the combination of both being the worst.

Arm-R-Seal gloss on the left, Sealcoat under ARS in the middle, and BLO on the right top and BLO + Sealcoat on the bottom right.

John

John - You are absolutely correct. I was looking at/thinking about one thing, and replying poorly to the thread at the same time.

My revised post: 3/4# dewaxed shellac applied in two pad-on coats; the second follows the reverse application course of the first to even out light spots. 600g light scuff sand to smooth. Then ARS or similar.

What I was getting at when I fumbled the ball is curly cherry [and curly maple] The "curl" in curly cherry presents as "blotch", so an ultra-thin coat of BLO first enhances/pops the curl - as you show in bottom right sample. The curl in the cherry boards I am looking at is a clearly-defined book-matched chevron pattern, which will not look like random globs of blotch. Well, it had better not, considering what I paid for it. So in this specific case, I am trying to enhance the blotch via BLO.

Thanks for yanking me back from the cliff edge.

Regards

Kent