staining a 6 panel door

[Tom7227]

I am trying to stain some 6 panel maple doors. The panels have a concave feature at the perimeter. I have put on two applications of stain but the concave portions seem to be too light. I used a compressor to get the stain out from the corners and under the 1/4 quarter round at the perimeter. I may have rubbed too hard on the concave portion but I am wondering if there's another reason for the light color. Anyone have experience with this and give me a hint of what I did wrong and how to fix it? I am reluctant to add another coat for fear that it will darken other areas.

Thanks for your help.

Tom

[PurpleFloyd]

Pop me a few pictures and I can tell you in a second. The biggest issue with staining maple is that it is very dense and the grain makes it tough to get an even look compared to woods like oak that take it more uniformly which is why many finishers will tone the wood first with dyes prior to or after staining.

If it is in the outside profile it could be from the tooling used to machine it, You could make it take more stain and get darker by using some sand paper or better yet a sanding sponge in a coarser grit than you sanded the face and working it over with that.

What stain are you using. Minwax?

[Gordie]

The maple will almost polish on the concave edges and not allow the full penetration of stain. another thing with maple is that it will become blotchy or become heavy in places and I use to use a pre sealer to prevent this. After the pre-sealing is done I sometimes use a gel stain to allow it to sit on the surface a bit longer.

By pre-sealing you are only allowing the stain to penetrate to a certain uniform depth.

I also apply the stain with a sheep's wool applicator, it holds a lot of stain and it is easier to get it in those tight corners and hard to stain places.

[Tom7227]

I am not real sure if these pictures are going to be big enough to see what the problem is. I think though that PF has lead me to the problem. I used a palm sander with 200 grit paper but only hit the high points. I did not touch the concave portions of the panels. If that is what the problem is how do I solve it? I don't think that sanding off what I've done is a viable solution as I doubt I can get it all and although the doors were fairly expensive I am not sure that the maple laminate is that thick.

I have Old Masters wiping stain from Abbott Paint.

Again thanks for your time.

Tom

[Gordie]

Tom the top, center pic really shows that blocting is occurring and the best way to pre-vent that is by using a pre-sealer as it only lets the stain penetrate to a certain depth.

You can get the pre-sealer at just about any paint store.

The bottom pic shows that the stain is really being sucked up in the router edges on the corners and again the pre-sealer will help this to not happen.

[Tom7227]

Gordie, aren't I past that stage of pre-sealer though?

[CAMAN]

I would run some sandpaper (150-200 grit) over the lighter areas to open the pores and try staining only those areas, it may require a few coats but should darken it.

[Gordie]

Gordie, aren't I past that stage of pre-sealer though?

Yes, I guess you are and I wasn't sure if you were completely done with all the doors.

Are you using three different colors of stain?

I would sand the whole door and reapply stain to get the color you want.

As was stated use a fine grit sanding sponge on the molding/concave areas.

[Tom7227]

Gordie could you explain the pre-sealer to me please. Don't you want the stain to get in deep to prevent scratches from show so badly? Thanks. Tom

[crothmeier]

The pre-sealer or "wood conditioner" is used on softer woods pine and species like maple to prevent blotching of the stain. It's typically applied before the stain and helps to create even stain penetration.

You also have to take into consideration the door, what parts are solid wood, what parts are veneer. they will all take stain differently and may come out different colors. Depending on the manufacturer it could all be veneer, or veneer stiles and rails and a solid panel, or vice versa.

Maple is one of the hardest wood species to stain.

[Tom7227]

Maple is one of the hardest wood species to stain.

I am learning that - the hard way. Got a heck of a deal on the doors but I am very disappointed with the results so far. Luckily I can use them in a spare bedroom if they end up not up to par.

Thanks for your help.

[Gordie]

The pre-sealer or "wood conditioner" is used on softer woods pine and species like maple to prevent blotching of the stain. It's typically applied before the stain and helps to create even stain penetration.

You also have to take into consideration the door, what parts are solid wood, what parts are veneer. they will all take stain differently and may come out different colors. Depending on the manufacturer it could all be veneer, or veneer stiles and rails and a solid panel, or vice versa.

Maple is one of the hardest wood species to stain.

Yep this is it.

It wise to sand the wood with a fine grit ( sanding sponge is what we used) to open up the pours kinda like making it all even, then use wood conditioner (pre-sealer) as this lets the stain penetrate to a even depth in the wood as not to let it get blotchy or so that it doesn't look darker in some areas than others.

IMO the best way to finish Maple is with a good quality light oil finish that is hand rubbed with a leather shammi almost like some gun stocks are done and you can have this stuff tinted as was mentioned in a earlier post.

You can chemically strip these doors and lightly sand them down them Bleach them out few times to get them close to being bare wood again ,but a darker stain is very hard to get completely beached out. just a thought

[PurpleFloyd]

I am not real sure if these pictures are going to be big enough to see what the problem is. I think though that PF has lead me to the problem. I used a palm sander with 200 grit paper but only hit the high points. I did not touch the concave portions of the panels. If that is what the problem is how do I solve it? I don't think that sanding off what I've done is a viable solution as I doubt I can get it all and although the doors were fairly expensive I am not sure that the maple laminate is that thick.

I have Old Masters wiping stain from Abbott Paint.

Again thanks for your time.

Tom

You will obviously get a different answer from everyone on what the best solution to what you have is. My personal preference is to not sand wood past 150 grit. When I was a Jr Woodchuck weekend wood butcher I used to sand everything to 220 but over the years I have settled on 150 as a good place to stop. The square sponge sanding blocks are good for getting into the profile and such.

As to how to get the stain to even out this is how I would do it. I would get one of the 3m or Weber sanding sponges in fine grit and run them over the panel profile going with the grain and then go back over it with the stain after you are done and you should be good to go. It would actually be better if the sponge was half worn out before you did it because brand new ones in the wrong hands and even in the right ones can give you some noticeable scratches. You can even put stain on the profile first and then work it in with the sponge. This is the sort of thing we do for light spots or even if we run into an area where we have a glue spot that didn't get sanded out prior to staining.

For maple, if you are using Old masters, which is a brand we use all the time the best formula to get is the wiping stain vs. the penetrating stain as it will give you a more uniform appearance,

Wood conditioners are basically products that flood the grain and prevent the stain from filling the pores,which is what leads to the blotchy appearance when some woods are stained. They are generally mineral spirits with some other oils that you apply wet and then stain before they dry.

Other methods to get around this that we use are toning, where you spray an even coat or more of a dye over the wood to get a uniform base coat and then stain on top of that or to use a method called glue sizing where you thin down glue to a very thin viscosity and spray it on the wood. That prevents the pigments in the stain from lodging in the pores.

Over the past dozen years I have actually gone to using waterbased spray stains for coloring maple. There is a company from Italy called ICA that makes a waterbased spray stain that is absolutely amazing.But the application takes a whole new skill set to do correctly.

You are also right about not wanting to sand those panels any more than you have to. They are just a thin maple veneer bonded to an MDF core and you could sand through them easily if you tried to sand through the stain to bare wood. But take the advice above and you should get favorable results.

[Tom7227]

I am using the Old Masters wiping stain.

I tried a number of different things and didn't have much luck.

I started sanding the concave areas with 150 grit paper and it clogged up very quickly. So I took lacquer thinner and cleaned off the areas. That to resulted in a lot of thick stuff but did get the areas fairly clean. I then sanded one down nearly to bare wood. The next application of stain did very little to darken the wood so I let it dry and did another coat late last night. I let that sit for over an hour and when I wiped off the excess there was almost no change at all.

I have the heat up to 64 so that should be warm enough. When I look at the one area I did last night there seems to be a sheen to it so I doubt any more applications of stain will do anything. I have thought about resanding and maybe even thinning the stain with some mineral spirits. I also wonder if the sanding sealer would even do the trick.

There are times when I feel like burning the darn things!

Thanks for the advice.

[Surface Tension]

I don't think there is much of anything you can do as of now and the sanding is going to round over detail. IMO it looks fine.

[PurpleFloyd]

I am using the Old Masters wiping stain.

[Snowking]

It sounds dumb but you could try water. We do this when a customer wants a deep color on maple. You would be amazed how much darker a stain becomes after a little water gos on first. I use a weed sprayer water it down wipe down the door and let dry. Then stain. I do t know if it will work on an already stained door but what do you have to lose?

[PurpleFloyd]

SK- I love your sig line.

[Snowking]

Purple Floyd that's something my boss said to me whenI was a green horn in the cabinet business. It's good to hear someone is still doing solid surface instead of granite. I miss them days. Are you doing them with the intergraded backsplash and the extra build up in the sink opening?

[PurpleFloyd]

Nah, not really much demand for that and the designers are generally doing a tile back splash so we just do a flat back. Also mount the sinks directly to the top. For a while I was doing the 3cm material and that was a little less labor intensive but at 220 lbs a sheet it was darn hard on the back.

Since I bought the cnc though I have been doing some of the sink cutouts on that and I am working on files to cut drain grooves into it but we don't do too much acrylic volume. My next adventure is to start fabricating custom acrylic aquariums. I can get passionate about that in no time.