Finish for maple to make it look old

[Roland Horst]

Hi,

I just bought an unfinished maple bookcase for my bedroom. The bed is a
very old and made of birdseye maple. It has a very nice color, like
honey, but very yellowish, not the intense red you see so often on maple
finishes. The grain is much more pronounced than on new maple.
I want to finish the bookcase that it looks similar to the bed. I know
that it is impossible to make new maple look exactly like old, but there
might be a possiblity to come close to it. The top coat will be varnish.
How do I match the color? I'm thinking of a very light water based
stain. Recently, I tried linseed oil on maple, and it enhanced the
grain enormously and darkened the wood. Would this work too?
Maybe somebody had the same problem and can give some advice.

Roland Horst

[Paul T. Radovanic]

If the linseed oil doesn't do the trick for you, I would suggest that
you then seal the wood with blonde shellac. Then, experiment with
mixing blonde shellac with garnet shellac at different ratios until
you hit one that you like. I would think that a small amount of
garnet added to blonde, say 1:10 would do the trick -- but you'll need
to experiment. Keep records, and make sure you mix up enough at one
time to do one complete coat on the whole bookcase.

That way, the color is in the finish, not on the wood. So if you
screw up, you can remove it all with alcohol and start over. You
should be able to match aged maple this way. After you apply two
coats of your color-coat, seal it with a couple coats of straight
blonde and rub it smooth.

Test it on scrap first, including topcoat, before deciding. BTW, I
can't imagine why you would want varnish on a bookcase. If I felt
that I needed more protection than the shellac, I would use Deft. But
that's up to you.

Paul Rad

For the best prices on shellac, go here:
http://www.concentric.net/~Odeen/oldtools/shellac/

[prome]

I agree with Paul. I recently had to do the same thing. I also see no reason
to go with varnish for that application. I started with several coats of
Watco natural...which popped the grain nicely. Then I used a base coat of
orange shellac, then a couple of mixed orange-garnet coats. However, I found
that I had to use more garnet than Paul noted...about half-and-half, with 2#
cuts of each. Then I used a glazing made with Behlen's natural glazing
compound, with Japan colors in it...about 10 parts glazing, one part Van
Dyke brown, 1 part lamp black. Wipe on, work into corners and crevices and
edges, wipe off. Then a top coat of super blonde shellac, then some Moser's
orange paste wax to finish. It matched an old maple table really well. A lot
of work, however!

Roland Horst <ho...@mail.pse.umass.edu> wrote in message
news:3793802C...@mail.pse.umass.edu...
> Hi,

>
> I just bought an unfinished maple bookcase for my bedroom. The bed is a
> very old and made of birdseye maple. It has a very nice color, like
> honey, but very yellowish, not the intense red you see so often on maple
> finishes. The grain is much more pronounced than on new maple.
> I want to finish the bookcase that it looks similar to the bed. I know
> that it is impossible to make new maple look exactly like old, but there
> might be a possiblity to come close to it. The top coat will be varnish.
> How do I match the color? I'm thinking of a very light water based
> stain. Recently, I tried linseed oil on maple, and it enhanced the
> grain enormously and darkened the wood. Would this work too?
> Maybe somebody had the same problem and can give some advice.
>

> Roland Horst
>
>
>

[Russ Ramirez]

I think your approach is basically fine. I would get a bottle of something
called TransTints in the Honey Amber tone. TransTints are available from
Homestead Finishing Products, (216)631-5309. You then simply add this dye
concentrate, drop by drop, to a pint or so of water until you've achieved
the desired color intensity (use some small pieces of wood like tongue
depressors to gauge how close you are getting). Probably looking at about
6-8 drops total. Shoot for a slightly less intense look than you're final
desired look as you have to account for the remainder of the finishing
schedule and it's affect on the final hue. Then brush-on the dye with a foam
brush being careful to always keep a wet edge on subsequent passes of the
brush - wipe dry any excessively wet spots or runs you get. After letting
the piece dry a day (at least) proceed with the linseed oil. Jeff Jewitt,
the proprietor of Homestead, can also sell you something called Tried and
True Danish Oil which is pure Linseed without driers or solvents - it dries
because it is polymerized, so the driers are not needed and it's actually
non-toxic. Apply the oil per the directions/your experience, wipe and wait
3-5 days(closer to 5 this time of year). Then go ahead and use the varnish
you were planning to use following those directions as well.

Russ Ramirez