staining dark, sanding lightly, and then staining light to accentuate grain? - Woodworking Talk

mattclara · 10-29-2009, 11:21 AM

As per the subject, is this a possibility? The idea being, soft porous grain will absorb the dark stain more than the stretches of denser wood in between. Light sanding will take it mostly off those parts, and then one could restain the whole thing whatever color one wanted. Is this viable?

Julian the woodnut · 10-29-2009, 01:15 PM

This is a common technique used on figured woods such as curly maple. Normally you would use a water or alcohol based dye first, sand it till all that remains is the dye in the grain, then stain over it with the desired color. I haven't tried your technique of just using stain, but I have used transtint dye with alcohol, then stain and it worked great.

JW_in_Indy · 10-29-2009, 02:17 PM

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