Poplar staining problem

[capnjack2]

Hey All! Just finishing up an entertainment center for a friend. He bought birch plywood for the cabinet cases and poplar for the face frames and raised panel doors. The original intent was to paint the entire unit white. But after seeing the pieces come together he thought it would look good stained in Red Mahogany. We warned him about the possible blotching and the way the green may come out funny here and there. As you can guess, after applying the stain to the doors, much of it looks like a walnut-ish color and he doesn't like it. He's thinking of going back to painting it white. He really wanted to have a RED mahogany effect. My question is how can we alter the color of the already-stained doors and how do we proceed with the frames?

Jack

[JayWC]

You can do anything over anything with Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations. http://cabinets.rustoleumtransformations.com/

I'm sure there are other options, but you can paint it a mahogany color and then glaze it to look like wood. They sell kits. There are videos on that website.

[Bob Rozaieski]

Hey All! Just finishing up an entertainment center for a friend. He bought birch plywood for the cabinet cases and poplar for the face frames and raised panel doors. The original intent was to paint the entire unit white. But after seeing the pieces come together he thought it would look good stained in Red Mahogany. We warned him about the possible blotching and the way the green may come out funny here and there. As you can guess, after applying the stain to the doors, much of it looks like a walnut-ish color and he doesn't like it. He's thinking of going back to painting it white. He really wanted to have a RED mahogany effect. My question is how can we alter the color of the already-stained doors and how do we proceed with the frames?

Jack

Jack,

Was there a top coat of film finish applied or just the stain? If there is a top coat already, you'll need to strip that off (use a chemical stripper). If there's no top coat, the job will be easier. Just sand through the stain back to bare wood. Pigment stains really don't penetrate that deep, so you shouldn't have to sand that much. You don't even need to get 100% off, maybe just 85% or so. You can leave some in the crevices and shadowy areas to give the piece a slightly aged look when done.

Once the sanding is done, tell him to skip the stain. In my experience, pigment stains are useless on bare wood, especially woods with tight grains. While poplar is a soft hardwood, it still has a small, tight grain. Pigment stains work by depositing solids into the pores of the grain. If the pores are really small & tight, the pigment doesn't deposit well, and most of it wipes out when you remove the excess. That's why the samples you always see in Home Depot and Lowes are done in oak. Oak has huge open pores that take pigment stain well. Woods like maple, birch, etc. do not. Pigment stains work ok as glazes, but for coloring bare wood, I think they stink.

Instead of a pigment stain, try a dye. The attached picture is a table top I did out of poplar. It was dyed with W.D. Lockwood Standard Red Mahogany (#54) water based dye, then topcoated with clear shellac. The dye comes as a dry powder that you mix with water. You can alter the volume of water to make the dye more or less intense. When mixed, the dye is a very dark wine red/purple, but because of the green in the poplar, the red gets toned down a little leaving a nice red/brown color when dry and topcoated. Pigment stain will not get you here. It will just make the grain muddy and blah and allow most of the green in the poplar to show through. To get this kind of color in a tight grained wood, you need to use a dye.

Of course this means getting back down to bare wood. As I mentioned above, this will require stripping if there is a film topcoat already. Then hand sanding to remove the stain layer. Once you have everything stripped and re-sanded, mix up your dye and absolutely make sure you do a couple of test boards before you do the finished piece. Making test boards will allow you to adjust the concentration of the dye and the type of top coat you choose so you can get the color you want before you do the finished piece. FWIW, making a test board may have prevented the problem he is having in the first place by allowing him to see what the combination of finishes he chose was going to look like before they were put on the finished project.

[capnjack2]

Thanks, JayWC and Bob! Great advice. There was no film finish, Bob, so I told him to sand through and use a red oak or red chestnut. But either way, it comes out all brown. You're right about the samples on oak. At this point he's frustrated and can't see it coming out the way he wanted it. I'll show him the picture and offer to help sand with him. Wish me luck!

Jack

[noddie1]

Maybe try putting the piece in direct sunlight for a week or two - I've heard that poplar can dramatically change colour over time as it oxidizes. NOt sure if this would help once the stain has been applied tho. Good luck!