I owned a professional refinishing business for nearly ten years and during that time the most frustrating challenge I ever faced was matching the color of two boards. Experience soon taught me that you begin by assuming you are not going to make the two boards look alike, for that rarely happens in nature. Before beginning we must grasp a simple, irrefutable fact: wood is unpredictable. That is why we love it ? and sometimes don?t. But that doesn?t mean there aren?t some ways we can swing the odds in our favor ?.
Q. ? The woodwork in our house is all oak with what looks like a very light pecan stain added to it. The doors, however, are all pine. My husband just remodeled our bathroom and has purchased a pine sliding pocket door. How can we make it match the oak trim around it?
A. - Does this bring to mind the now-popular adage ?You can put lipstick on a pig???
There are three elements in making two boards match: the color, the sheen and the grain.
Of the three, the sheen is the easiest to match, for the sheen of any clear finish falls into one of three common categories: satin (matte), semi-gloss and gloss. These are discussed in greater detail under Finishes. For now lets assume that you can easily determine the sheen of the finish on your woodwork (you don?t need to know exactly what brand of finish it is, but it helps) and can purchase the same sheen.
Color is harder to match, simply because you have to recognize what the natural color of your pine is (it can vary from species to species, even board to board) and select the right color of stain to apply over it. The only way you can determine that is by purchasing small cans of stain and experimenting with them on scraps of pine that look like your pine door.
You can affect the final color at least three ways:
1.) by how long you leave the stain on the pine before wiping it off;
2.) by applying one coat of stain, letting it dry, then applying a second color over it;
3.) by mixing two or more colors of stain together before applying them.
The grain is going to be the hurdle you can?t get over, for the grain pattern of pine is nothing like the grain pattern of oak ? and you can?t change that. More on that subject in the next question?.
So, in this case you are going to have to settle for two out of three: you can get the color by experimenting, you can buy a finish of the same sheen, but you can?t change the grain of pine into the grain of oak.
Q. - Are there certain woods that come closer to matching the grain of other woods?
A. - Certainly.
Poplar, for instance, is called ?poor man?s cherry? for the grain patterns of the two woods are so similar that when stained, inexpensive poplar can look like very expensive cherry. Not long ago I saw a set of dining room chairs labeled as ?cherry finish.? Each chair had one cherry board in the back; the rest of the chair was poplar with a sprayed, cherry-tinted lacquer finish.
Here?s a short list of examples:
Cherry Poplar or Soft Maple
Oak Ash or Butternut
Mahogany Any number of imported woods
Walnut Butternut
Hard Maple Birch
Q. - I am staining an all-oak bookcase that I bought unfinished. Already I can see that the sides and top are lighter than the facing. I?m using the same stain on all the parts. What happened?
A. - What happened is that your ?all oak? bookcase was not all ?solid? oak.
The tops and sides were probably made from less-expensive oak veneered plywood, then their edges were disguised with solid oak boards as the facing.
Oak veneer is a small fraction of an inch thick ? or thin, I should say, which means that the stain cannot penetrate very far before it hits a solid sheet of dried glue. In contrast, the oak facing is probably three-quarters of an inch thick and while the stain does not penetrate all of the way through it, the wood absorbs more dyes and pigments per square inch than can the veneered plywood.
As a result, the plywood will be lighter in color than the solid facing.
To compensate, in the future try this:
1.) stain the oak plywood first, leaving the stain on until, upon wiping it off, you achieve the color you want;
2.) then apply the same stain to the solid oak facing, but wipe the stain off after less than one minute (as compared to, perhaps, as an example, seven minutes on the oak plywood) and compare the color; if the solid oak is too light, reapply the stain and give it a little longer to soak in before wiping it off.
But to fix your stained bookcase, try this:
1.) rub the solid oak facing with a rag dipped in mineral spirits to see if you can remove some of the pigments to lighten its color;
2.) apply a second coat of darker stain to just the oak plywood in an attempt to darken it.
You will want to experiment with any of the above, either on scraps of wood or, if not available, on the side of the bookcase that will be against the wall.
Q. - I built a cherry dropleaf table and, without thinking too clearly, used a board with a streak of sapwood along one edge. I took your advice and experimented with my clear finish on some scrap pieces and can now see that the finish made the sapwood look even worse. I had not planned on staining the cherry, but am not sure now what I should do. Any more advice?
A. - As you have seen, a clear finish acts as a magnifying glass: it makes good wood beautiful, but only makes flaws look worse.
As it ages within the tree, cherry darkens. The youngest growth, that which carries the nutrient-rich sap just beneath the bark, used to be trimmed off in the sawmill, but since cherry is so highly valued, it is often left on. Some woodworkers leave the sapwood, preferring the contrast in color between it and the older portions. Others trim it off. At this point you have two options: leave it as is or use either stains or dyes applied with an artist?s brush to try to darken the sapwood.
Experience has demonstrated that the results can vary (wood, we recall, is unpredictable), so be sure to experiment on your scraps before you try anything on your dropleaf table.
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