monty1975

I have some old birch doors that I need to refinish. In preparation I have been expirimenting on some birch plywood from Home Depot with disappointing results. You can see my test piece in the picture below.

The finishes on the test piece are as follows (clockwise starting in upper left): straight amber shellac, mahogany stain with amber shellac, english chestnut stain with amber shellac, red mahogany diluted 1:3 with clear shellac, golden oak (1/2 poly, 1/2 clear shellac), red oak stain with (1/2 poly, 1/2 clear shellac, 1:1 diluted red mahogany (1/2 poly, 1/2 clear shellac). All stain is minwax penetrating stain.

Its probably difficult to follow my explanation above - the important thing is that the grain is not "popping" as much as I would like. The doors in the picture below have fantastic grain variation that I would like to duplicate. On my plywood, the stain goes on very dark and mutes the grain.

On the plywood I sanded with 150 then 220 grit before staining. I'm thinking the difference between the results on the plywood and the doors could be my technique, my materials, or the wood - after all it is cheap plywood.

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
Brian

How would you get the grain to pop as

monty1975

Here's another example:

The top coat is shellac as some denatured alcohol removed it. The finish underneath is not very dark but the grain is pronounced - this is what I'm trying to accomplish. I have some garnet shellac and some ruby shellac flakes on order to so I can duplicate the topcoat.

so two questions:
1) how to I prep the wood to achieve this grain look?
2) what color stain do you think I should use?


Thanks,
Brian