Brown Maple

[John Grossi]

Just returned from a day at SugarCreek, Ohio, home of thousands of Amish and their furniture stores. I was looking for some inspiration to get kickstarted on some projects. Oak seems to be their mainstay lumber, but a "brown maple" has made some inroads. With the correct stain it looks like cherry, and most importantly has the look my wife likes. I cannot find brown maple at my local lumber sources. Does anyone know anything about this type of wood? Is it just another type of wood renamed? Thanks John

[Ed Blough]

Just returned from a day at SugarCreek, Ohio, home of thousands of Amish and their furniture stores. I was looking for some inspiration to get kickstarted on some projects. Oak seems to be their mainstay lumber, but a "brown maple" has made some inroads. With the correct stain it looks like cherry, and most importantly has the look my wife likes. I cannot find brown maple at my local lumber sources. Does anyone know anything about this type of wood? Is it just another type of wood renamed? Thanks John

I have never heard of brown maple but I'm in the thoes of the trying to stain maple brown.

Many manufactures have a finish they put on maple that gives it a cherry like appearance. I'm trying to duplicate that and let me tell you it ain't fun. Frankly next time I will use cherry or walnut.

Maple is a soft wood and tends to blotch when stained. Many people recommend sealing the wood first with shellac then staining. Sounds easy enough. But let me tell you trying to apply a stain evenly atop shellac is akin to torture. When everything is perfect I can get the result I want but the instant your wiping rag touches a section of wood already wiped you have problems. This is especially interesting with raised panel and rail and stile construction.

I have tried gel stain and regular stain and in both cases a slightest overlap, drip, inadvertant touch whatever basically ruins the finish and correction is nearly impossible. I have spent more time striping the shellac and stain off and resanding than I have building the project.

My advice if you want it to look like cherry use cherry. If you want it to look like walnut use walnut. If you want something creative and different then use the stain but don't for a minute think you can stain one kind of wood to look like another at the very best it will be close but that close comes at a price, frustration!!!

[Jim W. White]

What Ed said ....twice!!

I had one peice where my friend insisted they wanted to "stain" a maple peice I was building for them. I can tell you definatetively it will be the LAST time I ever due that.

I finally had acceptable results using a water based anyline dye instead of stain but...... I'm with Ed, maple should stay bare! (so should cherry, walnut, ash...... but that's another thread all together)

Jim in Idaho

[Dave Diana]

It kind of sounds like maple heartwood to me.

[julie Graf]

is it soft maple or hard maple?
i've worked with soft maple that is very brown when oiled. and it has a sort of cherry like texture to it.

[James Walling]

Any advice or web pages on how to stain\finish maple? I am about to build a craft table for my wife using broad-leaf maple?

[Jack Briggs]

Maple is a soft wood and tends to blotch when stained.


I'm guessing by "soft wood" you mean relative to another type of hardwood, Ed?

I've used all kinds of maple in my line of work and the softest would be bigleaf Western maple, but I wouldn't refer to it as soft.

I do have a big very old board that I acquired a few months ago. Much of it has heartwood that is brown, rather than the usual reddish color. Maybe this is what is referred to as "brown maple". This is definitely old stock - I counted annular rings at about 25-30/inch in areas!

[Dave Lehnert]

Just returned from a day at SugarCreek, Ohio, home of thousands of Amish and their furniture stores. I was looking for some inspiration to get kickstarted on some projects. Oak seems to be their mainstay lumber, but a "brown maple" has made some inroads. With the correct stain it looks like cherry, and most importantly has the look my wife likes. I cannot find brown maple at my local lumber sources. Does anyone know anything about this type of wood? Is it just another type of wood renamed? Thanks John
Just got back from Sugarcreek myself last week. I go every year to look for hand planes but no luck this time.

[Greg Cuetara]

FYI. There is a hardwood supply store in New Hampshire who carries brown maple. They consider it to be a seconds sort of item because it is $2.25 / bd.ft. Not sure if this is what you are talking about. It has areas of brown splotches but still very pretty wood.

[Chris Fetting]

John,

I also purchased some from a supplier in CT. It was regular hard maple that had a lot of discoloration and streaks. I liked the color variation, LOML prefers less. It generally is considered a second compared to FAS or #1 common.

[John Grossi]

Thanks for your replies. Being I cannot get brown maple here, I was considering using maple and staining it cherry to get the look the Amish have. The reason to not use cherry is a $500-$650 savings. Any other ideas on maybe a different wood that will get the same look. Thanks.

[Stephen Pereira]

This thread is especially timely for me as I am experiencing some of the same problems.

I am using birch for my latest project. The reason I am using birch is that I came across a lot of it for a price that I can afford. There is nothing wrong with the natural color of birch.. I used it for my kitchen cabinets with just BLO and wipe on poly.. looks great imo. However, I wanted a different color for my latest project. I tried shellac washcoat then dye reddish brown mahogany. I didn't like the results,, either blotched or not enough color. I switched to waterbased conditioner and had better results. For the final color"tweak" I used tinted shellac.. shellac tinted purple.. I got this maroon.. or as close a color as I can describe in words.. color that I like.

This thread brings up, as others have said, a whole other topic. Forgive me if I bring it up but I think it is appropriate.

The prices of "traditional" furniture lumber is getting very expensive. 4-5$ bd/ft is not uncommon. A woodworker has a few options (1) suck it up and pay the price, (2) find local loggers/sawyers and make their own lumber and (3) learn techniqiues to color locally available wood to get the desired results. I have done the latter two, the learning curve is steep. I am considering buying my own saw mill.. but that is another topic :)

[John Shuk]

I think BLO will turn maple dark over time and it looks very nice.

[Ed Blough]

Brown Maple! It just dawned on me I bet it was maple with a nitric acid wash.
Nitric acid available from industrial and lab supply companies when applied to Maple and hot air dried makes maple brown. Because it is a reaction rather than a stain it is perfectly even and does not blotch on maple.

The secret is you have to use hot air to dry the acid after you apply it to have it work. If you want to see a demonstration go to http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Sawdust_Sessions.htm and go down to session number 3 Sept 15 and click on the most incredible wood stain ever. Check it out I will guess this is the "brown" maple the Amish are using.

[Ed Blough]

I'm guessing by "soft wood" you mean relative to another type of hardwood, Ed?

I've used all kinds of maple in my line of work and the softest would be bigleaf Western maple, but I wouldn't refer to it as soft.

I do have a big very old board that I acquired a few months ago. Much of it has heartwood that is brown, rather than the usual reddish color. Maybe this is what is referred to as "brown maple". This is definitely old stock - I counted annular rings at about 25-30/inch in areas!

Yes I used the term soft as a description of physical characteristic of the wood. By definition "Softwood" is wood from conifers (trees with needles instead of leaves) however many "Softwoods" are far harder than many "hardwoods" example Douglar fir or Southern yellow pine (after it has dried over the years).
Maple particularily sugar Maple while considered a "hardwood" (tree with leaves) has a fairly open pore pattern and this trait makes it absorb stain and dye in a wide variation. Making it nearly impossible to sucessfully stain without presealing the wood.

[Jim W. White]

What a great video! Thanks for posting the link. I've read several threads on "chemical staining" before but I've never seen it so clearly and simply demonstrated. I'm going to have to give that a try sometime!

Jim in Idaho

[Darryl deHaan]

I have found another way to make maple brown, but I dont really recommend it.:p

Darryl

[Dave Anderson NH]

Highland Hardwoods in Brentwood NH occasionally has Brown Maple on sale as a special. Brown Maple is the heartwood of the various varieties of maple trees, though primarily soft maples. It's a sale price item because when people buy maple they are looking for the white color that we all recognize and associate with maple. The brown heartwood normal ly is either used for painted construction which needs a hard stable wood or is ground or chipped up and used as fuel in woodfired powerplants in this part of the country.

[J.R. Rutter]

I've run across dealers selling the maple heartwood for the brown color. It is a way to get some value from the portion usually consigned to pallet wood or firewood. Don't know if there are stability issues from coming so close to the center of the tree...

[Eddie Darby]

Just ran across these folks and thought some of you would like it.

http://www.tswoods.com/