Curly Maple finish?

[Puddin' Man]

Greetings,

I am working with curly maple for the first time, making a folding candleholder:

usual, I am working "on a shoestring", with minimal tools, finishes, etc. I have some dark walnut and other odd-ball oil-base stains lying around. I expect it would be best to final-finish with my Minwax wax, as the maple parts need to slide across one another.

But I need a darker tint, and, as I recall, maple is kinda tricky regarding stains, etc.

Would appreciate advice/suggestions about prepping/finishing such a project.

Thx, P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."

[SonomaProducts.com]

For curly maple I have good success using water based solutions of transtint dyes. There is an online movie from FWW showing a guy doing a guitar body with a great technique.

1. Wet the piece andsand off standing fibers after it dries.
2. Wet it again before dying to slow\control the absorbtion. While it is wet apply a strong coat of black dye rubbing it in evenly.
3. After it dries hand sand it until just accents of black remain in and around the figure, accentuating it.
4. I then colored with Vintage Maple and Medium Brown dye. You could go with Maple and some black. This time re-raise grain by wetting, sand when dry, wet again beofre applying dye to control saturation. Multiple coats of dye can darken.

I'll post pictures tonight.

[Father Haskell]

Seen lots of stained figured maple that looks like crap. Seen lots of it dyed with Transtint or similar quality dye that looks stunning.

[SonomaProducts.com]

Oops, forgot to post pics. I feel that my work on this piece falls into the stunning category. The 20 watchers on eBay agreed and the guy who jumped for the buy-it-now option expressed his anxiety at waiting and he said he just had to spring for the buy-it-now price before someone else bought it. He got a great deal.

Sorry for the long url, not sure how to make them short with my current web setup.

Pictures of Curly Maple finish

[Swingman]

about the piece is "stunning", from design, to execution to finish.

A beautifully done masterpiece ... congratulations!!

[SonomaProducts.com]

Thanks. I can only take credit for the finish. I bought a kit from Bartleys to check out my competition and figured (pun intended) I could use it to try out my newly devised finishing technique for figured maple.

[Robatoy]

Yea... that is pretty cool.

I will never forget a friend of mine showing me a Les Paul (1956 IIRC) and the back was birds-eye... they looked like pearls.. 3D pearls floating in inter-stellar space... awesome..... No LSD.. but his girl brewed some interesting teas. That effect was so incredible, the back of that guitar looked like it was 4" deep. I heard he later sold it and paid off his mortgage.

[Swingman]

It looks like remarkably like a David J Marks' finish ... and that's a compliment. I believe he uses General Finishes products, though.

[-MIKE-]

>>> Everything about the piece is "stunning", from design, to execution to > finish. >

What he said!

[Han]

Swingman wrote in news:kuedndDXXu-hXdTQnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

Like Karl said ...

[Ray]

I have worked with curly maple and I just use a home brew finish of linseed oil, varnish, and turpentine. I think the results are nice. I tried dye and was not that pleased. I think it was too dark and will try again. I have a lot of stock to play with. Some of my maple projects can be seen at:

[Swingman]

the amount of time you take to work with such intricate detail. Well done.

[nailshooter41]

WOW!!

Really nice work to both Sonoma and Ray.

There is some really nice finishing going on around here these days!

Robert

[Puddin' Man]

found).

Thanks for the advice. I'm working with Transtint and 91% iso-alcohol. Not too bad, so far.

P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."

[SonomaProducts.com]

Yeah, my website is going through an upgrade right now and I dropped that articel offline. There are 5 pics and you can see them at these links

etc.

[SonomaProducts.com]

Alcohol is a bit harder to work with. It is real easy to get lap marks if the edge drys and the next wet section overlaps. You can rub it down with pure alcohol to try and dilute out any differences. Also watch for wicking. It gets in the seams and then wicks back out after you have wiped it down and often drys before you can wipe it away again. Same problem with water but easir to catch before it dries and easier to wash out if you miss it. You can also replace about about

20% of the typical alcohol with isopropyl alchol which drys a little slower.

I started with alcohol but found that the minor extra work to deal with raised grain was way less problem then trying to get good results with alcohol. I wet the piece completly before I start applying my water dye and then rub it in to the depth of color I need and wash it back out if it gets too dark, etc.