Dark Stain

John848 wrote: > I'm getting ready to build some barrister's bookshelves. I would like to > have the final color very dark, possibly with a dark red tint. I usually > work in red oak but would never be able to get the color dark using oak. > I'm looking for advice as to the wood that takes dark stain best - > walnut? maple? cherry?

Have you considered white oak with a BLO and bees wax finish?

Lew

Oak can be stained quite dark. Cherry is also very stainable but you can hide the natural beauty of Cherry by going too dark. If dark is important use Walnut - It is usually a natural dark wood and many finishes will accentuate the grain without stain (pick your wood carefully because Walnut can also be rather light).

You will not get there with Maple. It is a hard wood and doesn't take stain all that well.

RonB

Consider dying it, and then staining it. Oak takes dye just fine. I like to use both.

Use a dye. The one I use most often is made by Transtint. It comes in a variety of colors and must be diluted with either water or isopropyl alcohol (my choice) before use. The more dilute the lighter the color. You can go as dark as you want!

One more thing. With a dye you can make ALL of the woods you mentioned as dark as you want!

Stoutman

Thanks to all for the advice - I'm going to order some right now and see how it works.

Thanks again.

John

I just finished a set of built-in bookshelves and also wanted to get a dark finish (mission style in my case) with the red oak I was using. I used a formula I found in one of the mags, but tweaked it a bit. It called for 4 parts Miniwax red oak stain to one part non-fibered roofing tar. That was a little too red for what I wanted, so after experimenting a bit I did 3-to-1 golden oak/red oak, then took that and mixed it 4 to 1 with the roofing tar. It was supposed to mimic ammonia fuming with white oak, which I think it did pretty well without me keeling over in the garage from ammonia poisoning.