Help need w/ tiger maple finish

[Chris Brennan]

I'm hoping one of you guys can help this amatuer (me) out of a bad situation.I made some poster frames from 1x2 tiger maple and attempted to finish them myself. I used J.E.Moser anilne dye, Honey amber,which went well. I then,foolishly,overagressively sanded back the dye.Not realizing how unevenly I had sanded them,I proceeded to my next step,a generous coat of BLO. This really highlighted how uneven they were. The sides look good but top and bottom rails are much lighter,showing much less figure. Definitely my heavy handed sanding. Is there any way to even this out?I'd love to re-dye the wood,as I really like the way it came out,on the good sides. However,the other sides look blotchy and light. Any suggestions on what I could do to salvage these potentially beautiful frames? Remember,I've already applied BLO.My intention was to then apply shellac to finish. Any help for this first time poster would be greatly appericiated . Thanks, Chris

[Casey Gooding]

I'm not sure how, or if you can match the color after the BLO. One suggestion is to go ahead and apply your shellac then use a glaze to try to even out the color. Add more glaze to the lighter areas, then more shellac and final topcoat (if you want something other than shellac).

[Scott Holmes]

Casey's suggustition is probably the most likely to succeed.

FYI: (you said you are an amatuer) Glaze is a technique where you apply another coat of color BEWTEEN clear coats (shellac in this case) Glazes compounds are getting more difficult to find but the good news is you don't have to custom colr you glazw... glazes are now easily replaced with gel stain of the appropriate color. Wipe it on and leave just enough to get the overall color and look you want to achieve. NOTE: Glaze will hide the grain a bit. Apply it too heavy and you can completely hide the grain.

There is another option: "TONERS" but it's not a technique to learn on your project. Like glazes toners go between clear coats. Most are lacquer or shellac based. basicly toners are clear coats with color added. There are two types, dye toners and pigment toners. I prefer the dye toners as they are transparent and don't have pigment that can hide the grain. Toners are sprayed 99% of the time. A bown toner is like putting brown Saran Wrap over your wood, the grain will still show through...