Another Maple Question....

[Justin Jump]

OK all, need some advice on finishing maple, I know this has been kicked around before…..

If you look at the pics, I built three prototypes. The first was a quick one out of oak, actually some left over hardwood flooring, and the other are both made out of maple.

The maple one in the middle has had a coat of 1/2lb cut shellac per Wood Whisperers clip on finishing blotchy woods.

I used a gel stain on the oak I had laying around, then two coats of SW Kem Aqua Plus. Which by the way, in a previous post I was struggling with bubbles in the dried finish with Minwax. I believe the Kem Aqua has helped eliminate these, but I still need some practice.

For my maple panels, I think I am going to go the route of spraying them with Transtint Dye, cut with denatured alcohol, then layer of the dye to my desired finish.

My questions are, my mock ups will help answer these, but is the 1/2lb cut shellac really needed if I am going the dye route?

Will I need to have a cut of shellac between the dye, and the finish coat of SW Kem Aqua Plus?

Needless to say, my finishing schedule is planned to be:

Sand Maple with 120, finishing with 150.
Sand End Grain with 220.
One Coat of ½ lb Cut Shellac (wiped on or spray on?)
Light Sanding with 3M Fine / Ultra Fine Sponges
Spray Dye Stain Until Color Achieved
One Coat of ½ lb Cut Shellac (wiped on or spray on?)
Two Coats of SW Kem Aqua Plus (one sealer coat, one top coat)

[Lonnie Gallaher]

JJ,

I will be watching this as I am building in the same materials that you are, and I am still not sure of the finish schedule - fact is your mock-up looks just like what my mock-up will look like - I hope.

My question is what router bit set did you use for your doors? It looks like the plywood panel fits the mortise without any gap.

Also, what plywood are you using for the panel? The mdf core maple ply that I picked up is just over 3/16 thick and I have not found a router bit set that will work without the panel being loose.

Thanks for your help.

My mistake. I did not look that close at first. I see that you are using solid panels.

So, does anyone have a method of or router bit set that will work with the mdf core ply?

[Justin Jump]

Lonnie,

I used the Freud Shaker bit, #762 I believe. I have a decent fit with the set, with all the shims removed. I think your 3/16" panel might be too thin, I read that 1/4" MDF cored is really close to a true 1/4", but I have not tried it yet, it's hard to come by in my area.

The Oak setup is using a plywood panel, and the maple one'e have raised panels, but I still may go 1/4" MDF cored maple plywood. i used raised panels because I had the hardwood, but no plywood yet.

I have read, and head good things about Sommefeld's Shaker set also, if you didn't buy one, you could try that.....

[Kent A Bathurst]

My questions are, my mock ups will help answer these, but is the 1/2lb cut shellac really needed if I am going the dye route?

Will I need to have a cut of shellac between the dye, and the finish coat of SW Kem Aqua Plus?

Needless to say, my finishing schedule is planned to be:

Sand Maple with 120, finishing with 150.
Sand End Grain with 220.
One Coat of ½ lb Cut Shellac (wiped on or spray on?)
Light Sanding with 3M Fine / Ultra Fine Sponges
Spray Dye Stain Until Color Achieved
One Coat of ½ lb Cut Shellac (wiped on or spray on?)
Two Coats of SW Kem Aqua Plus (one sealer coat, one top coat)

Try it without and see. Me - I never put down dye without shellac seal coat on before it. 1/2# is less than I use - I am somewhere in the 1# range. After the dye? I always seal every coat of color [dye, gel stain, whatever] to prevent lifting or transfer of color. But then, I don't have spray equip.

I know zero about SW Kem Aqua - sorry.

FInish schedule looks about right. But, when I am using dark-ish dye, I sand the end grain to 320, and then brush on 2 coats of 1# shellac - the end grain color is always a dead-nuts match for the flat grain color.

[Chris Padilla]

Ah, something with which I'm quite familiar! I'm doing the same thing whereas I need to stain maple a dark chocolately walnut brown.

First, I would start playing with maple off-cuts to try out things on. Yes, I would spray shellac if possible. I'm lousy at applying it otherwise.

To give the maple some tooth and ability to absorb some stain (such small pores but that vary...why you get splotches. Splotches are just areas where stain concentrates because the pores are arranged differently and are of different size...welcome to maple), I wouldn't sand to 150. Stop at 120. At least that is what I'm doing. Sand a scrap of maple to 120 and one to 150 and try your schedule of finishing. See what you think. Heck, try one to 180. I think you'll be surprised. For end grain, that sounds fine but you could also just sand it like the rest and paint some glue cut in half with water on the end grain...then resand with 120. Again, try it and see for yourself.

Dying is a wonderful thing to bring even color to your project but it can also be evil if you don't use it properly. If you're dying stile and rails and relatively small areas that can be wiped on with a single wipe or two, you'll probably be fine just applying your dye to your solvent (I would use DNA and not water...to minimize grain raising) and then wiping it on. I like to use sponges cut in half or even quartered. I like the size of the sponge to be a tad wider than the area I'm applying it to if possible. If you're doing a larger area like a plywood panel, you'll want to add a retarding agent to the dye mixture so it doesn't dry so quickly on you. This will give you time to go over the panel to even out the color and spread out any lines. I've never sprayed dye before but that could be a good idea as well. I may give it a go on my maple cabinets because I do have large areas to dye and I'm NOT looking forward to it.

If you're finding splotching to be a problem then by all means, lay down a pore-sealing coat of 1/2 to 1# cut of shellac. IIRC, the Zinnser SealCoat you can get at the borgs is 2# so cut that in half with DNA and hose it on and sand it smooth with some 220 or higher. Use mineral spirits to clean up the debris after sanding. In fact, mineral spirits are great for cleaning up all wood after sanding and for giving you a sneak preview of how it might finish...it'll reveal glue spots and other imperfections.

You could also put your dye right into the shellac and use THAT as a colorant to get the color you desire. Then you combine two steps at once. You can still fine sand it without affecting the color. Each layer of dyed shellac will deepen and darken the color. Just use the SealCoat right out of the can...add your dye...squirt it on and layer it until you like it. I may actually try this because I only just recalled doing this on a previous project to get a cherry color on a shelf to match our Ethan Allen china cabinet color. One warning, however, is that each colored shellac layer does tend to hide the wood grain more and more. Experiment and see.

Here is what I plan on doing to darken my maple. I have a quart can of gel stain: Dark Walnut from Varathane. I added Behlen's NGR dye (Hickory color) and found the magic color SWMBO liked (after dropping $80 on 4 Transtint dyes that never found the right color for her). Now I need to make a larger batch of it and hope I get the color right AND I have all the quantity I need because I'll probably NEVER be able to make the same twice. Using the gel stain with the added dye SEEMS to help keep the maple from splotching. I also dumped the NGR dye into an open bowl container so that it would evaporate most of the alcohol and concentrate the dye. This gel stain is already fairly runny and I wanted to minimize that adding in more liquid. My wife really liked the nutmeg dye color right out of the container but I shuddered thinking about applying that to a large panel and keeping the color uniform. So I came up with the idea of adding the dye to the gel stain but I'm a bit worried I might still get splotching.

I gotta tell you, I'm really thinking twice about spraying the dye. I think if you thin it enough to begin with, you can really control the color. I'm thinking a 1/2 - 1# cut of SealCoat (clear shellac, thin with DNA) to seal is probably a good idea but perhaps unnecessary. Next, add your dye right to the SealCoat and start layering it. The key here is to experiment, experiment, experiment. I might first experiment by spraying the dye solution right on the bare wood and see if I can get uniform color on a large area of some maple plywood. I'm less worried about the maple hardwood but I would spray that, too, to keep the amount of dye consistent between the two.

[Chris Padilla]

Oh, as a final coat of whatever, shellac can handle anything so I'm sure the SW Kem Aqua will be fine. Again, experiment first.

[John TenEyck]

IMHO, there's no need to apply a shellac sealer to your maple IF you spray the dye on. All that will do is increase the chance of runs. Spraying dye pretty much eliminates the chance of blotching as long as you don't apply a flooding coat. Just wet the wood uniformly and it won't blotch. If you want a darker hue, either spray multiple coats (my preferred way) or use a higher strength dye. There's no harm in spraying a dewaxed shellac sealer after the dye and it would help eliminate grain raising if you plan to use a WB topcoat. Keep in mind, you MUST spray the shellac or first coat of WB topcoat when applying either over Transtint because it is soluble in both. Chris's recommendation to use Transtint in Sealcoat shellac, as a toner, also works very well on maple. If you are good at spraying uniformly, it works very well. If you go that route, however, I would start by spraying a 1# cut of Sealcoat with no dye first.

I would sand to at least 180 grit on maple, more likely 220 and 320 on the end grain. Otherwise, you risk having visible scratches. Your sample boards will tell you. Also, I would not use the 3M sanding sponges, they are far too aggressive IMO. I use Norton 3X Contour Sanding Sponges; they are the best thing I've ever used between coats.

John

[Kent A Bathurst]

.......... you MUST spray the shellac or first coat of WB topcoat when applying either over Transtint because it is soluble in both.

Very true.

So - I gave up my transtint and went with the Transfast powder. Both in water. Transfast does not have anywhere hear the "lift' as the trainstint.

I use the transtint only for adding color to - whatever. Never for putting down a dye coat.

[Chris Padilla]

Perhaps with SPRAYING the dye coat, one can go to finer and finer sanding grits. In my test pieces sanded to 120 grit, I have no sanding marks (I use a combo of ROS and hand sanding with blocks) but as I went to higher and higher grits, one starts burnishing the maple and closing up the already small pores such that they have difficulty holding any dye particles. For sure, your staining will look different depending upon your final grit of sanding.

Gosh darn it I'm going to try spraying the dye!!!

And John, thanks for the correct term of adding dye to shellac: TONER. Yes, that was the word that escaped me in my novella above.

[John TenEyck]

Chris, yep, toners, great technique, and Transtint makes great toners in both shellac and when added to WB topcoats. I've sometimes started to build color with a shellac toner, and then finished with another using my topcoat because I had to adjust the color a little.

Burnishing is a sign you should change to a fresh piece of sandpaper. Most people, including me, use sandpaper way longer than it should be. Fresh sandpaper cuts the wood, even the very fine grits; they only burnish when the particles get dull. True dyes like Transtint don't really care how fine you have sanded the wood, provided it's not burnished, at least when they are sprayed on. Might be true though if you flood on the dye, but I really don't like doing that on maple because it just begs to cause blotching, the exception being birdseye or some other figured maple where I'm trying to create contrast. The tendency for woods like maple to blotch is reduced the finer they are sanded, which is why I sand them to at least 180 grit. And by spraying only enough to wet the wood the probability for blotching is greatly reduced. You are absolutely right about how stains behave vs. how fine the wood is sanded, and the only way to find out the correct combination of materials and processes is by making lots of specimens.

John