Pretreat Birch plywood before stain & finish?

[James Carmichael]

Howdy,

Newbie here, getting ready to build some shelves using birch plywood. It may be heresey, but I would like to stain either cherry or walnut and seal with poly.

Is it a good idea to pretreat birch to get it to take the stain evenly? Also, what would work best, water or oil-based stain?

Thanks!

[Hal Flynt]

Welcome!

The short answer is it depends.

Best advice is to test on some cutoffs. I think the water based dyes will get you the deepest color and oil will accentuate the grain. If you can spray the dye, you will have a lot of control over coverage and intensity. If you apply by hand, then you need to be able to cover it quickly without letting an edge dry. (A pad works better here). The big advantage with dyes is that you can continue to add color is small increments until you get to the level you want. (I usually use TransTints and add to alcohol instead of water, it's the way I started learning, and you can tint finishes with TransTints to adjust final color.)

For walnut, I dyed the wood a pale yellow, then walnut dye and finished with a thin walnut oil stain which left some pigment in the pores. Make sure the poly and oil stain are compatable.

Good luck!

[Dick Parr]

James Welcome,

If your intent is just get say a minwax type stain and then use a minwax poly over it, then I would pre treat. It will even out your stain. Plywood absorbs stain very fast and at different rates in a single sheet, also can get very splotchy. Since I don’t spray, this is the method I use. But as Hal notes, test what ever you use on some cut off’s first. This way you will know if you like the untreated ply, treated ply or if you will need multiple coats to get the finish you want. Good luck with your choices.