what is the proper way to stain maple to acheive the depth of dark walnut? I have to do an entire kitchen.
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Replies
Buy walnut?
Seriously, there isn't a one step method that is going to get maple that dark unless it is thinned paint. I assume you want the grain to show. I would say that you are going to have to dye the wood first and then use a toner to build up the color.
Try to establish a color that is the same as the lightest color in walnut with the dye and then use a finish with dye in it (toner) to slowly bring the color to that of walnut. IMO you are going to lose the grain before you get that dark and it will never look like walnut if that is what you are trying to accomplish. With a coarser grained wood than maple you could seal the dye and use a pigment stain as a glaze to get it darker, but i don't think a glaze will do you much good on maple. In my mind you are almost in the realm of faux finishing here.
Why are you trying to take two woods that couldn't be much different and trying to make them look the same? Are you sure this is something that you have to do? In my area walnut is only about 20% more than maple and is going to look 100% better. If you are stuck with maple you may have to adjust your expectations a bit. But maybe someone else will come along and tell us both that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
I smell a wife behind this.
Rob
Rob,
You make some valid points, but I will say that where I am walnut is 3 times as expensive as soft maple. I just paid $2.68/bf for maple and just refused to pay $7.50/bf for walnut.
Lee
I agree with Rob. If you are going to use maple, then just aim for dark colored maple--looking like walnut isn't achievable. Dye is the only way to get dark without too much blotching. You might get some benefit from using a gel stain as a glaze over the dyed and lightly sealed maple to deepen the look a bit. I'm a little leery of using toned finishes without spray equipment, but with the capability to spray a little toner is quite helpful in achieving a rich finish.
You can get mahogany to look like walnut, though not save much. Using lyptus will save a bit more compared to walnut, and with a combination of dye and pigment glaze can be made to pass for walnut quite well. But unless the wood starts with a similar fine ring porous grain structure nothing will achieve the look of walnut. Frankly, in the scheme of things, $1,000 or $2,000 more for the wood in a kitchen that will become the most important single determinate of the value of a house wouldn't be the place I'd try to save.
Mapleman,
I was thinking hard maple. My guy gets $3.30 bf for soft maple, $5.10 for hard maple and $6.10 for walnut. All of those prices are rough, S2S is $0.20 a bf extra.
What I like about this place is that he lets me go through as much as I want to find the pieces I need. I also get wood that is 90 to 100% heartwood. So the waste factor is nill. This guy is a retired carpenter and he advertises in the national magazines for mail order lumber in random lengths and widths. I wouldn't be scared off by this though as he usually doesn't have anything under 6" wide and 8' long.
http://www.badgerwood.com/products.html
To the OP. Let us know what is important to you and maybe we can be some help with wood selection.
I'm using Poplar to make a prototype display stand for a large bronze sculpture that will ultimately be made from walnut. The prototype is to give the customer a final "look" at the stand's size, scale, proportions, etc before we commit to the walnut. I also told the customer that I would stain/finish it to look as much like walnut as possible.
Yesterday, I picked up a can of Varathane's Dark Walnut Stain with polyurethane. It's new (to me, anyway), but I decided to give it a try since Poplar can also get pretty blotchy. I stained up a sample piece last night, and was amazed at how good it looked. No blotches, and the color is almost dead-on.
I'll be working on it some more today, and will post some pictures. (The sun isn't up here, yet - lol)
t4two,
You want what can't be done.. stain maple that color and all you'll have is dark wood.. Black walnut is much more than brown! If you look closely you'll see purple yellow black and white, if it's air dried you'll also see gold and honey plus shades of orange and burgundy.
The funny part is that black walnut isn't that much more expensive than maple, in fact untill recently is was cheaper..
Thanks everyone for your inputs. Sounds like I'm attempting the impossible just to save a few bucks. Unfortunately where I am walnut is around $7 bf. and that's not in the budget. I will have to look for something else.
Since you haven't entered any profile info, I don't know what your geographical location is, but if Alder is available in your area, check it out for price. Alder can be finished to look very much like walnut. It is a blotch-prone wood, so you need to develop a finishing schedule that will circumvent that (washcoat of shellac, etc.) before you touch the actual finished product, but you can get great results.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
As promised, here are some pictures of my poplar project. The pedestal picture is a little dark, but hopefully you can see it well enpugh. It isn't real walnut, but I doubt if many people would be able to know the difference. It will certainly do for the prototype.
t4two
Have you followed my suggestion of buying wood from a small to medium sized sawmill?
Even today with the chinese paying absolutely silly prices for walnut You can buy FAS walnut for less than $3.00 a bd.ft.
The hardwood market report has it at $2.10 bd.ft. in small quanities you may have to pay a premium.
Recently one of my lumber suppliers ran a special on walnut lumber at $5.00 bf (500bf min) normally $7.00bf.I don't need that much walnut.I'm going to look into using alder.
t4two,
the wonderful thing about balck walnut is the way it works.. In all the years I've used it I've never gotten a sliver from it.. When planned with a sharp edge the wood actually takes on a waxy smooth look that to my eye is ready to finish.. Black walnut cuts easily and planes nicely and frankly is a joy to work with.. when you add the depth and variety of color walnut has it's such a pleasure to work with.
Admittedly I have access to extremely cheap black walnut and it's spoiled me from working with all other woods but no imitation anything will really look like the real thing.
Besides when you add the cost of dyeing a wood and the potential for a mistake (one more step) why wouldn't you buy black walnut? A couple a bucks? Some things are worth it..
The following commercial was brought to you by the black walnut and shellac council <GRIN>
I just had an idea that I wish I had thought of sooner. Butternut is a member of the walnut family, it is sometimes called white walnut. Butternut is only a little more expensive that soft maple. It's grain and structure are very similar to walnut, just a lighter color. It could easily be manipulated to look like walnut, maybe not frenchy's air dried walnut, but most woodworkers don't get air dried anyway.
Here is a picture of some Butternut. It may be a little difficult to find, but it is available. My supplier has it most of the time. You might even like the way it looks naturally.
hi Rob, I have never seen butternut before. It looks beautiful. I doubt it would be much cheaper than walnut given I'm in calif. I appreciate everyones input. Haven't decided what to do yet.
Everyone seems to be on the same page.Walnut and maple,you know ebony and ivory?They are wood but diferent.I have many years experience finishing,and to take maple to walnut color can of course be done,I can do it,but all you get is maple thats darker,but not maple that looks like walnut.Why not wait till you can get the walnut?.......look at the photo of walnut.You can not make maple look like that.
Michael Foscone
http://www.michaelfoscone.com
Here are the pictures...
http://www.michaelfoscone.com
I've found that Moser's water-based stains (including dark walnut color) will do a good job on maple. I made a batch recently that was 1 oz. stain to 16 oz. water, and the resulting color was so dark I decided to dilute my batch 2:5 (and added a bit of red wizard tint, too).
While this will color your maple dark, it will not of course give you the variety of hues (greens, reds, purples) that you get in walnut. Then again, try finding moldings in walnut...
Good luck. You can get Moser's stains from woodworker.com.
Moldings in unusual woods aren't so hard as I had thought. Here is an example--I was looking at crown moldings to get ideas about the crown for some custom kitchen cabinets. I saw a fingerjointed stock molding at my lumberyard, and just for the heck of it asked if I could have it done in Lyptus (the wood selected for the cabinets). A phone call to the supplier came back sure--it will be ready in a week or 10 days--at a cost that was pretty reasonable since there wasn't a special set up fee since the knives were used for standard stock patterns. In my case the benefit will be that the kitchen crown will be identical to the painted crown moldings used on the rest of that open plan floor.
Yes, you can get anything if you're willing to wait. My usual lumber yard is also a molding manufacturer, so I know I could get it in anything I want, but off the shelf it's poplar, oak, maple, cherry, and mahogany.
One needs to be careful, though, as stock thicknesses and the aptitude of the employee feeding the molder can vary some or lots.Recommending the use of "Hide Signatures" option under "My Preferences" since 2005
I would agree with what the others have said about using real walnut. Over the years, I have learned that it is far better to buy the highest quality wood in the first place, rather than to try to work around sub standard "bargain" cuts of wood. You will have a much superior product in the end if you use real walnut. You need to pass the expense along to the customer, and if they aren't willing to pony up the extra $, you should think twice about having them as a client.
Something else to consider is veneers. When I am doing cabinet jobs, I really never do solid raised panels. Instead, I use high quality veneers for the door panels, and solid wood for the door frames and face frames. This will save you at least 50% in materials over raised panel, and you can do some amazing things with walnut burl, or figured veneers that you would never be able to do w/ solid wood.
If you are dead set against using real walnut, you might give poplar a try. UIt will be much more receptive to staining like walnut than other woods out there, and is realtively inexpensive.
Good luck in what ever you decide to do.
Peter
www.jpswoodworking.com
In an earlier post, I mentioned using Varathane's Dark Walnut Stain/Polyurethane on poplar, and promised to post some pictures.
I assembled the stand this morning and took these pictures. Two of them are "before and after" and the third is a closeup which most closely matches the overall color. (The flash on my digital camera isn't very good, so only closeups are close to properly exposed. It isn't perfect, but it's the closest thing I've ever seen to looking like the real deal.
You might want to give this stuff a test on some scrap maple and see what you think.
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