Add some golden/orange color to maple edging

[Leo Butler]

I made a corner cabinet to finish off a quirky spot on our kitchen bar top. It's made with two different kinds of maple plywood (old solid core and modern A/B faced) with maple on the edges. I applied dewaxed shellac as a sealer then used a Minwax gel stain which was the perfect color to match the kitchen cabinets that it goes up against, but the hardwood took up much less of the color than the old plywood. Looking to get some more gold/orange on the edging before applying the finish, although I'll live with it if need be. Just seems like a good opportunity to learn a new recovery technique as I'm sure I'll need to employ it again.

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My test applications of the gel stain were, I thought, close enough. But I didn't use a scrap of the old plywood in that and the difference between it and its edging are a bit more than desired. I'll get good at choosing and applying finish one of these days - and do proper testing!

Thanks...

[John TenEyck]

Maybe diluted amber shellac. Otherwise, it would be off to Transtint in dewaxed shellac trial and error for me.

John

[Paul F Franklin]

To what grit did you sand the edging? You might try a piece that has only been sanded to 120 grit before staining.

[Prashun Patel]

It looks like the hardwood sealed too well. I would try sanding it back, and putting the gel stain on before the shellac - just the hardwood edging, and of course doing a test first.

[Leo Butler]

To what grit did you sand the edging? You might try a piece that has only been sanded to 120 grit before staining.

I sanded everything to 220.

[Leo Butler]

It looks like the hardwood sealed too well. I would try sanding it back, and putting the gel stain on before the shellac - just the hardwood edging, and of course doing a test first.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give this a go on a maple scrap to see how far it gets me before tackling the sanding of all of the edging.

[Leo Butler]

Maybe diluted amber shellac. Otherwise, it would be off to Transtint in dewaxed shellac trial and error for me.

I think I'd like to experiment with this in any case. Honey Amber looks somewhat close but I'm sure I could go down a rabbit hole trying to perfect it. The application isn't worth that time investment but seeing how the tinted shellac would lay down on the existing finish would be good to know. I have some brown TransTint I can use just for that experiment before buying the (hopefully) correct color.

Do you think I'd get away with brushing this on the edging without masking the plywood at the edging interface? I'm sure that I'd need to spray on the finish after going this route to avoid lifting the tint.

[Jim Becker]

Keep in mind that with the dye you should have a bit of control to "sneak up" on the shade. It's best to be "too light" and have to add more.

[John TenEyck]

I think I'd like to experiment with this in any case. Honey Amber looks somewhat close but I'm sure I could go down a rabbit hole trying to perfect it. The application isn't worth that time investment but seeing how the tinted shellac would lay down on the existing finish would be good to know. I have some brown TransTint I can use just for that experiment before buying the (hopefully) correct color.

Do you think I'd get away with brushing this on the edging without masking the plywood at the edging interface? I'm sure that I'd need to spray on the finish after going this route to avoid lifting the tint.

I've had good luck wiping Transtint/shellac toners on edging without getting it on adjacent faces. And you could always mask off areas you don't want to get any one. FWIW, be prepared to use more than one color; a single color almost never gives a perfect match. It all depends how close is close enough.

John

[Mike Henderson]

Remember that maple goes yellow with age - and it doesn't take that long. You might leave it natural and let it age in.

Mike

[David Utterback]

Yesterday, I removed a dent from some tiger maple I had applied a couple of thin wipe on coats of Waterlox. I had used a very thin coat of shellac as a sealer and then sanded thoroughly since it had very little effect of the color contrasts of the tiger maple. Anyhow, to raise the dent, I applied a drop of water and then a heat gun to evaporate the water quickly.

Although I am not certain, the heating appeared to increase the color contrast as well as the amber tone overall. It might be fun to experiment further to see if the effect is real and to what extent it may be used to adjust the colors of applied finishes, hopefully without weakening the finish.

[Prashun Patel]

The edging on that board looks like it has NO finish whatsoever - or a waterbased finish. Even the slightest bit of shellac - unless you used a 'platina' or super blonde. What did you use? Sealcoat?

[Leo Butler]

The edging on that board looks like it has NO finish whatsoever - or a waterbased finish. Even the slightest bit of shellac - unless you used a 'platina' or super blonde. What did you use? Sealcoat?

Yes, Sealcoat diluted 50% per instructions. At this point I figure applying the gel stain directly to the edging would have been a better idea. I'll try that on a test piece this weekend when I can get some time in the shop.

[Leo Butler]

I've had good luck wiping Transtint/shellac toners on edging without getting it on adjacent faces. And you could always mask off areas you don't want to get any one. FWIW, be prepared to use more than one color; a single color almost never gives a perfect match. It all depends how close is close enough.

This is what I did. I used a 2 lb. cut of dewaxed amber shellac flakes, added three Transtint dyes in a ratio of approx. 5:3:1 of Honey Amber, Reddish Brown and Golden Brown, respectively. A bit of a pain sneaking up on the "close enough" color, but since the matching varies with lighting and the angle it's being viewed from, this was about the best I was going to manage. The pic below shows a bit more of a color difference than the naked eye.

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Next I'll take an abrasive pad to it, put some finish on it, and reassemble.

It was quite time-consuming, not to mention expensive as I had to buy two of the Transtint colors. For my next project that uses plywood and edging, I'm going to need to find a nice reliable finish that nails a consistent color. And I won't get cute and try to reuse plywood from the old kitchen next time.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions.