How to stain maple dark. See how general finishes water based wood stain meets the challenge of uniform and dark color absorption on difficult to stain wood species such as pine cherry birch and maple without the need. I recently embarked on my first flooring sand and refinish job after i tore up some vinyl and found maple underneath in my kitchen. When staining soft maple kitchen doors and drawers from a millworks shop the painter applied a special walnut stain directly to the raw wood. Question i have finished my entertainment center and it looks great but i have come to the knowledge that maple is hard to stain and achieve an even color.
Some types of wood like pine cherry birch and maple are notoriously difficult to stain. Total newbie and diyer here sharing my 002 on staining maple dark. With all of that in mind i push the customer towards a wood species that has at least the base color someone is looking for. In this article well show you how.
The stain did not take well on wood milled with the grain and on cross cuts the stain soaked into the wood giving a dark black color. 9 posted 10 08 2010 0311 am. The only thing i would add to the above is about the min wax stain conditioner. Staining maple a dark color heres a variety of suggestions for getting maple to take a dark even stain.
Adding the color back is easiest to do using a spray gun to apply dye to the bare wood before applying the washcoat andor by applying a colored finish over the stained and sealed wood called a toner or shading stain. When you want a dark color on a light wood like maple you need to add the lost color back in using another step or two. When finishing maple wood youre always going to want to keep a few key things in mind. Heres the short version.
But theres a simple way you can prevent most stain blotches. A board that has a nice attractive grain pattern can end up with dark splotchy areas after you apply the stain.