Another maple finishing question

[Steven Charbonneau]

First off, new guy here and this is a great site. Tons of information and I am very happy I found it. I am a home hobbyist who can build okay but finishing has always challenged me. I do hope you can help me here, I am at wits end.

I made some furniture out of soft maple boards and maple veneered plywood. I have not been able to achieve a good stain (looking for a brownish red hue) that doesn't blotch on the scrap pieces I have tested. Surface prep has been either down to 220 or 320 grit. I have tried brushing and or wiping on minwax - no luck - it gets blotchy, I have tried wiping on gel stains - no luck - its blotchy, used transtint suspened in alcohol and transtint suspended in zinnsler's sanding sealer - no luck, its blotchy.

Next I used the Zinnslers sanding sealer to seal the boards (two clear coats - sanded to 400 grit) and tried to use the gel stain - not blotchy but barely tinted the wood. I tried liberally brushing on transtinted alcohol over the prepped boards - good enough color, but I cannot brush it on evenly across larger surfaces to achieve a uniform color. Ditto for brushing tinted sanding sealer over the prepped boards - even harder to achieve uniform color.

What am I not doing right, or what do I need to do to get this to work? I tried convincing my wife that natural finish was prettier than stained finsih but she didn't buy it. I don't have a spray gun (yet) and I am hoping there is a solution that doesn't involve spray guns.

Thanks in advance for any help, assisstance, insight, and patience that you can provide.

Respectfully,
Steve

[Greg Heppeard]

220 grit is a little fine for maple staining. It forces the sawdust back into the wood pores and therefore it won't accept stain. I rarely go finer than 150 on maple that is going to be stained. Then I seal it with shellac. If you want a dark finish...use a medium or dark shellac, then stain and apply top coats.

[Sam Yerardi]

Welcome Steven,

You'll get a lot of good suggestions here from the guys. I guess my approach would be to keep the sealer process separate from the coloring. The reason is if I'm trying to reach a certain color, I will tend to do it in an incremental approach. If I tried to color the sealer in one step and then had to keep adding sealer to get to the color it will probably make things go a little difficult.

I would seal with a thinned shellac to control blotching, and then use a gel stain separately to even the coloring. The gel won't abosrb into the wood as fast as liquid stain so it's a bit easier to control. Start with leaving the stain on for a short period, 20-30 sec until you get a feel for what color deposition you get vs. time left on the surface, and then wipe it off. It's easier to add color than to try to remove so you may have to do this step numerous times until you get to the coloring you want. When you get to the right color, then finish with a top coat. There are a lot of different choices depending somewhat on the application.

[Phil Hudak]

Steve,

Coloring maple is a PITA; see posts #20 & #29 for my recent experience and solution:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...dak#post698795

Unfortunately, it did require a spray gun.

Good Luck,

Phil Hudak