Maple.dye

[Randy Denby]

I am in the final days of building my daughter a wine cabinet/bar. Its only about 4 ft long and 21 inces deep, with dual 5 " deep doors. The top and a few more places has high dollar curly maple veneer over regular maple. Unfortunatley, she wants me to dye this piece to a dark transint brown. I am afraid of blotching and NEEDING a pretty tough finish, for the ocasional set /'SPILTdrink. Will spraying this dye(transtint) with a topcoat ot laqcuer, be enough? Or do I need to put down a sanding sealer or urethane/oil mix? I just hate the look of poly as it just looks cheap IMO. THANKS rANDY

[Steve Schoene]

Spraying the dye should allow you to get the least blotching. Then for protection you have a wide range of options. Then you can seal the dye with a light coat of shellac and apply a pigmented gel stain to add some depth. On curly maple, the "blotching" you may get shows up as enhancing the figure.

Film finishes such as lacquer will provide more protection than oil/varnish mixes. Lacquer is probably durable enough, and is easy to repair. But if you go to a catalyzed spray finish such as conversion varnish you can achieve even more protection from chemicals, with the downside being that they are more difficult to rub out, and a lot more difficult to repair should that ever be needed. And, of course these finishes require adequate spray booth and equipment.

Sanding sealer doesn't add protection, it's only benefit is that is sands easier, unless you are using certain particular spray finishes where the manufacture specificly recommends specific a sanding sealer.

No need to ever use poly on furniture. Poly's only significant benefit over traditional resin varnishes is resistance to abrasion. Poly is best left for floors. There are plenty of non-tradional resin varnishes that offer all the meaningful protection needed for furniture. Easiest to apply are wiping varnishes such as Waterlox, in either Satin, Original/Sealer, or Gloss. They require more coats, but the coats don't need as much time between them as full strength varnish. You can easily make any good varnish into a wiping varnish by adding thinner. Behlen Rockhard is a good varnish, as are McCloskey Heirloom, or Pratt & Lambert 38. Any of these choices allow you to build enough film for protection without getting the plastic look of polyurethane varnishes.

[Randy Denby]

Thanks for the info Steve ! I appreciate the input and especially after re-reading my post from last night....I cant believe the spelling errors and font problems. Either I was really tired or someone else wrote that missive ....oh well, thanks again!

edit: I just remembered the reason for my stupidness last night.....I had taken an Ambien (sleeping pill) last night as I'm staying in a hotel here in Fort Worth, and the bed is terrible....just one more night andI can get back to MY bed