Wiping Stain on Maple
Pros discuss ways to get consistent color using a wiping stain on maple furniture. October 27, 2005
Question
I am having problems with wiping stain. I'm using a custom blended wiping stain from ML Campbell called Brandy Cherry. We gave the suppliers a sample of the melamine we wanted the wood to match and they mixed it for us. The problem is that some of the items have A1 Maple ply and turned Maple legs. Other items have Maple hard wood and Maple cove moldings. I can’t get the Maple ply and the turned legs to look the same. The ply comes out lighter than the legs. On the other items I can’t get the Maple and the Maple molding to look the same. The Maple comes out lighter than the cove moldings. Does anyone have any ideas?
Forum Responses
(Finishing Forum)
From contributor A:
Do you want the light color or the dark color? If you want to make it all dark, a quick and dirty method would be to water-pop the ply and the hard maple so they'll take the stain more. You can mist it with a mix of water and isopropranol.
From the original questioner:
It would be great if it looked all the same, but definitely darker.
From contributor B:
You may want to think about using a tinting toner as your base color.
From contributor C:
Make a shading lacquer if you are working with lacquer or precat. You can use compatible tint in the lacquer, up to 10% by volume and spray apply to the wood to adjust the color of the wood after staining and sealing, hen topcoat with weapon of choice. ML distributor could use tint formula for stain into lacquer. Also, you could use an aerosol toner to adjust color. This is done every day in the cabinet and furniture industry. Don't be tempted to shade the stain over the surface. Since the stain has little or no binder it will cause adhesion problems in your coating. Take your time and do it the right way.
From contributor B:
If you first uniform the color of both woods with a tinting toner and then apply either a sealer or your clear coat to protect the tinting toner’s color, when you apply your wiping stain you will find the color to be exactly the same on both woods.
