Two tone oak raised panel door after staining

[Bob Glenn]

Help! We are having a local cabinet shop make custom cabinets for out kitchen. It's about a 20 thousand dollar job. The oak cabinets are to be stained a light pecan color. The cabinet maker just sent a picture of our color sample, which I stained, next to their door panel. The door panel has been glued up and it looks like two different colors due to the way the wood has been cut. It is not a small difference and stands out dramatically and is unacceptable in my opinion.

I've emailed him with my concerns and suggested a light shellac or prestain conditioner be applied.

Will this help with the situation? Any better solutions? Thanks

[Michael Dunn]

Pics would help. Can you upload them?

[Tom McMahon]

If you are using a professional cabinet maker and he does not know how to get an acceptable finish on his work, get a new cabinet maker.

[Bob Glenn]

We just went over to the cabinet shop. The picture he sent was on the back side of the worse panel. The picture looked far worse than the actual panel. They are going to blend any other irregularities to lessen the affect of grain differences. Thanks, Bob

[glenn bradley]

Good news. Any competent kitchen guy should be able to give you a good result. I was thinking you had run into a goof but, we can blame the camera. I take pictures of my own stuff that shows inaccurate colors ;-) Glad that worked out.

[Howard Acheson]

A word of advise: When dealing with stain colors always prepare a piece of scrap from the project and stain and clear coat that to really see how it looks. Never choose stains or other finishes from photos. If matching colors, always view the pieces side by side never alone. Stain colors look different under different lighting.

[Prashun Patel]

Are your cabinets going to be glazed? That'll also do wonders for evening tone.

[John TenEyck]

We just went over to the cabinet shop. The picture he sent was on the back side of the worse panel. The picture looked far worse than the actual panel. They are going to blend any other irregularities to lessen the affect of grain differences. Thanks, Bob

The color should be uniform, but if you did not specify the grain type to be used you are at his mercy. The different grain patterns of oak in particular can dramatically influence the appearance even when the color is consistent. Sorry not to be more positive and for $20K you should get what you want, but you should have specified in detail what you wanted on the contract. I don't think you would be at this point had you done so. It is common to use quarter or rift sawn grain for door frames, and plain sawn for the panels. If that's what happened, a stain would highlight the difference and make the panels look a lot different than the frames. The way to minimize the difference would be to avoid stain, at least until the wood is sealed. Toners, and glazes would allow the cabinet maker to build color over the sealed wood, minimizing the effect of the different grain patterns. The cabinet guy should know this stuff and be able to give you what you want. OK, I ended on a positive note.

John