Best stain to match African Rosewood

[Don Morris]

I've done a couple projects with African Rosewood. It's a pretty wood. Doesn't mill as easy as I would like, but I din't use it that much, and it and it was pretty enough †o make me happy to put up with it 's shortcomings. Never needed to stain it before, Now I have to stain some Maple backing and that sticks out beyond the Rosewood up to 1/2" and some bare wood drawer knobs. I'm looking at Minwax gel, Rosewood, and their Red Mahogany stain (I have some mahogany sitting next to the rosewood and sometimes have to do a double take to tell them apart from a distance). Just in case someone in this forum happens to have some experience with staining to match African Rosewood, I thought I'd ask. Shot in the dark, but would certainly beat buying 2 to 4 cans of stain and spending days figuring out which works best, whatever that may be. Thanks in advance for advice. Custom Finish-staining is obviously not my strong suit. Don M.

[Frank Pratt]

No stain that exists will make maple look like rosewood. the grain of the 2 is just too different. About the best match would be to spray both woods with a heavily pigmented (think semi-transparent) stain/toner that masks the grain of the rosewood & lack of it in the maple. But then that kills the whole point of using rosewood.

[Mel Fulks]

I would use paint. And use thin wire and sharp knife for small detail.

[Jim Becker]

I agree with both Frank and Mel. You might be able to get a hue close using various dyes, or something totally opaque, but stains like you ask about don't do well on maple no matter what.