need advice: staining cherry tabletop

12 years ago

Hello,

I have stripped and begun staining a dining room tabletop that is cherry veneer. (I'll post before and current photos below) Before stripping the leaf was a very different shade of cherry. I was hoping that the top would be the same color after staining, but it is still slightly different. The leaf remains more brown than the rest of the table. Aside from going with a very dark stain, is there anything else I can do to get them to match up more? Or is that just the nature of cherry? (Or is it likely that I am the only one who will notice?) If I did stain over it with a darker stain (ie. General finishes Brown Mahogany) would the leaf match up more with the rest of the table? The difference is more noticeable in person than in the photo. I am using General Finishes Candelight gel stain - which is I am really enjoying working with.

Thanks,

-- Pauline

Before:

Now:

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Comments (5)

klavier
12 years ago
From the second picture I would just stay with what you have and not mess around with it. It looks pretty darn close. The only way I could think to make it closer would be to sand it out, blend a custom mix of dye stains (not pigment stains) to match the actual present color of the other pieces and then step up the concentration until you reach an even darkness. Glazes like gel stain are pretty much super thinned paint. By darkening it or adding more you will just conceal the wood. Use a pigment stain like minwax and you will just accentuate the grain and pores ever more. A dye stain is absorbed into the cell structure of the wood and colors the actual wood fiber itself so if you can blend a dye the color of the wood you like, you will get pretty darn close with your leaf.
nd a dye the
klavier
12 years ago
From the second picture I would just stay with what you have and not mess around with it. It looks pretty darn close. The only way I could think to make it closer would be to sand it out, blend a custom mix of dye stains (not pigment stains) to match the actual present color of the other pieces and then step up the concentration until you reach an even darkness. Glazes like gel stain are pretty much super thinned paint. By darkening it or adding more you will just conceal the wood. Use a pigment stain like minwax and you will just accentuate the grain and pores ever more. A dye stain is absorbed into the cell structure of the wood and colors the actual wood fiber itself so if you can blend a dye the color of the wood you like, you will get pretty darn close with your leaf.
nd a dye the
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klavier
12 years ago
From the second picture I would just stay with what you have and not mess around with it. It looks pretty darn close. The only way I could think to make it closer would be to sand it out, blend a custom mix of dye stains (not pigment stains) to match the actual present color of the other pieces and then step up the concentration until you reach an even darkness. Glazes like gel stain are pretty much super thinned paint. By darkening it or adding more you will just conceal the wood. Use a pigment stain like minwax and you will just accentuate the grain and pores ever more. A dye stain is absorbed into the cell structure of the wood and colors the actual wood fiber itself so if you can blend a dye the color of the wood you like, you will get pretty darn close with your leaf.
nd a dye the
nutmeger
Original Author
12 years ago
My husband thinks I should just leave it the way it is too. Its looking pretty!
User
12 years ago
I suspect that the color difference could be due to the fact that cherry reddens and richens with exposure to light and that the leaf has probably been unused and mostly stored in a location with very little light. You might take it outdoors on a sunny day and expose it to some UV and see if that doesn't change the color to match better.