Quilted Maple Drawer Fronts

[John Michaels]

I'm building a dresser (my first woodworking project) and have a question about the quilted maple drawer fronts. I ran all the boards through the planer and 2 of the boards are quite a bit lighter in color afterwards than the rest. Before I planed, all the boards looked more or less the same. As far as finishing goes, I'm considering using boiled linseed oil to pop the grain, letting it dry for week, and topcoating with a waterbourne finish.

Do I need to dye the 2 lighter boards to match the others? In this case the BLO method won't work as from what I've read you can't dye after you've treated with BLO. Any advice would help.

[John Huber]

I'm on my second project with quilted maple, though mine use veneer. For finish, I've had really good luck with David Marks' method http://www.djmarks.com/stories/faq/What_is_the_mix_ratio_for_the_Linseed_Oil_Tung_Oil _and_Urethane_46687.asp

As far as the boards not matching, IMHO it is hard to judge the tone of as-planed highly figured wood. I would sand progressively down to 220 grit and then maybe a wipe with mineral spirits on both faces will help you to choose the faces with the best match. You can dye under any finish, as long as the dye and the finish don't use the same solvent. When I dye, I use weak solutions, lots of test pieces, and creep up on the darkness. It seems that the tone doesn't become clear until there are at least two coats of the final finish on the test piece. Moral: be patient and careful.

[John Michaels]

John, Thanks for the advice

[Steve Roxberg]

Fine Woodworking Issue number 135 had an excellent article on "Popping the Curl"

Do you have that issue?

[John Hemenway]

You can add dye to the finish coats. Then it's called toner. Allows adjustments after you get the BLO on and see it with a coat of your finish. It might be a little tricky to do if you are not spraying the finish as an even coat of toner is important.

As others have/will say...
Test, test, test on scrap first!!

[Tim Solley]

The one pitfall I could see with dying the raw wood is that it would affect the curl more in the dyed wood. You wouldn't be just matching wood color then, but also figure, and that could be super tough. If you try a toner like John suggested, it would probably fix that, especially if the wood is sealed first.

Yep, lotsa scraps.

Tim

[Henry Cavanaugh]

If I were doing your project I would finish as you described and not try to add color.Slightly different shades is not a bad thing.

[John Stevens]

Hi, John, I just finished doing something similar with bird's-eye/ribbon maple. I noticed that even the pieces that were cut from the same plank were noticeably different in color, and the difference increased after I applied the oil to pop the grain. I used tinted shellac to fade the light areas into the dark areas by a trial-and-error process.

Probably the best way to do that is with spray equipment. I don't own a compressor or sprayer, so I padded on the tinted shellac in the areas that needed to be darkened. I used "color theory" (in Flexner's book, and probably Jewett's books, too) to make my best guess as to the color needed, and to change colors as needed. Before applying any tint, I first applied three coats of un-tinted ultra-pale shellac over the oil. That provided a "buffer zone" to keep the dye from getting into the wood itself. That way, a tinted coat can be removed fairly easily if necessary. To remove a tinted coat, I lightly skimmed it with an alcohol-soaked, lint-free rag. You should only do that when the tinted coat is completely dry (like 2-3 hours after application), although you can also get away with it immediately after application--like within three seconds after you've wiped on the tint...just enough time to put down the applicator, pick up the rag and give it a quick, light swipe. In between three seconds and 2-3 hours after application, the rag may drag in the newly-dried shellac, in which case it will probably leave a mark.

I applied the tinted shellac with a pad that would normally be used for applying wipe-on finishes such as wiping poly. (This is the type of applicator I always use for shellac.) It works fine as long as you use a different applicator for each shade of color you're applying. If you keep the pad in a sealed jar, it'll stay pliable between applications (for weeks, actually). Apply the tinted coats with a single, light, skimming motion, and don't try to go back and hit any area again before it's fully dry. If you do, you can easily leave a mark in the finish. I like to apply one coat in the morning before work, another coat as soon as I get home from work, and a third coat before bed. No matter what, I allow at least three hours between coats just to err on the side of caution. After the last tinted coat was fully dry, I hit it with some 320 sandpaper lubed with mineral spirits, just a couple of very light strokes by hand, to level the finish a bit.

I found that I was able to get a reasonably close fade with 3-4 coats of various tints, depending on the area.