Finishing Maple

[George Bokros]

I have heard that maple does not take stain well, is that correct? It was suggested to me that a dye would be better for maple, if so what is better to use, alcohol based or some other solvent? Or just use something line GF Dye Stain?

Thanks

George

[John Sanford]

Maple takes dye stains nicely, pigment stains not as well. The stain base should be something that won't be dissolved by the finish, otherwise you run the risk of some of the dye bleeding into the finish. A modest risk, but a real one. Dyes generally have one of two mediums, either water or alcohol. So, don't use a water based finish with a water based dye, and don't use a shellac finish with a alcohol based dye.

[John TenEyck]

George, if you have spray equipment take a look at SW's BAC Wiping Stains. They are OB and about the easiest stuff I've ever worked with, beautiful, uniform color. The only downside is the first stuff you put on top has to be sprayed. The other way I get around blotching with maple, and cherry, is to spray a dye or shellac/dye toner on it. I know people say you can flood the dye on by hand and it won't blotch, but it does for me. But if I spray it on just enough to wet the wood with no extra it doesn't blotch.

John

[David Eisenhauer]

I use transtint dyes (hvlp sprayed) mixed with water, then water-based shellac over the dye to fix it from running when I put the water based clear topcoats over the shellac. I finish sand-wet to raise the grain-re sand (220)-then apply the dye. No issues. Tinted shellac toner as John described above works well too, but I have less luck getting my desired final color with toners (due to a lack of experience with toning in general) as opposed to color first-shellac to seal the color-then topcoats. I have been told that an oil-based wiping stain covered up with the water based shellac before water based topcoating works as well for blotchy woods, but have not tried this. Should work because dewaxed shellac sticks to anything and anything sticks to dewaxed shellac. I have put shellac over oil based stains and then water based top coat over the stain/shellac under coat.

[John TenEyck]

George, I forgot - if you don't have spray equipment you can still use the BAC Wiping Stain by using rattle can shellac to seal it afterwards, then you could use any finish you want over that applied any way you want. That's how I often make samples when I'm too lazy to set up spray equipment.

John

[Kent A Bathurst]

I use transtint dyes (hvlp sprayed) mixed with water, then water-based shellac over the dye to fix it from running when I put the water based clear topcoats over the shellac. .

Me too. Kinda.

I use transfast powder mixed with water. Used to use the transtint, but I learned that the transfast was much less prone to "lift" - and it turned out to definitely be true. Buncha transtint bottles sitting idle.

Then - I use shellac - not water-based - alcohol based. Very little lift from the transfast powder.

[David Eisenhauer]

If you think I make a mess mixing Transtint, you ought to see me mixing Transfast. Lordy, what a rodeo. I don't normally have any lifting problems, but it is good to know. Being as those Transtint bottles of yours are just taking up shop space, may as well send them to me to clear up some room on the shelfs for more Transfast. Don't ya think???????????????