Can bleach fix this problem?

[John Stevens]

I'm making a chest of drawers, and the drawer faces are made of bird's eye maple. I tried to buy wood that was very close in color and figure, but one was a little darker than the other. Now that I've sanded the wood and put on a coat of BLO to bring out the figure, the difference in color is much worse. The light wood stayed very light, but the darker wood got quite a bit darker.

If I sanded off the BLO to get back to bare wood, would it be possible for me to bleach the darker maple to match the color of the lighter maple?

I realize I have other options for matching the colors (e.g., dye stain to make the wood uniformly dark) but my wife and I like our maple as light as possible.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Steve Schoene]

Bleach could work in this situation, though you do need to get the BLO off thoroughly. You would want 2-part wood bleach, designed to take the natural color out of the wood, leaving it pretty pasty off white. It may take two applications. It will tend to raise the grain, so you should both pre-wet and sand, but you will still likely have to sand off raised grain--being very careful not to cut through the bleached portion. You will then likely need to apply a very light dye to return to a more natural look.

You need to experiment with scrap--both of the light and dark varieties. This can be a bit tricky, so do large enough pieces to really see what is happening, and carry the tests from preparation all the way to at least one coat of the final finish.

This is a good example of why the first step of finishing is always to choose the materials carefully.