Birds Eye Maple
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I plan on making a hall table using Black Cherry.
The drawers will be fronted with Birds Eye Maple. I have never finished a piece of furniture with Birds Eye Maple. Does any one have any recommendations as to the best technique to make a pleasing contrast between the Maple and Cherry and to bring out the birds eye in the Maple.31 October 2015 at 1:21 am #131911My guess is that Paul would probably finish the maple with shellac and wax and the table top with a wipe-on poly or something similarly hard and durable. I think the contrast will be great if using a colorless shellac on the maple. Good luck.
31 October 2015 at 10:24 am #131914The best finish to bring out the figure is an oil finish. Use a hardening oil like a Bush Oil or Minwax Antique Oil. It is basically boiled linseed oil with hardeners. It is super easy to apply and a silky smooth feel.
You could actually finish the whole table with it.
How did your table turn out, especially the finishing?
I’m playing with some highly figured maple right now, learning to finish it with dye for color and then finish over that. I’ve learned a quite a bit from Charles Neil and am trying to put it into practice now. He points out that the figure in maple is from the wild grain, which means the surface you are finishing is a mixture of long grain and end grain. From a finishing perspective, end grain means a spot that will soak up finish and blotch. For highly figured woods, that blotching isn’t always bad, as it would typically be in cherry or pine, and can give very nice contrast. On the other hand, it is so pronounced in maple, that Charles warns that your dye can actually migrate through the surface leaving you with much more contrast than you want. For water and alcohol based dyes, one trick he uses is to wet the surface with water, then apply the dye. The water is not excessive, but it isn’t a “dry coat,” either. What happens is that the water will move into the end grain portions of the figure more than the hard, close long grain. When you apply the dye immediately afterwards, this impedes the movement of the dye. This gives you more control over the process, i.e., your color may come out light, but since it is dye, you can always let it dry and then repeat with water and dye again to deepen the color further. You want to take care because of that migration thing….the appearance of the piece will change after you apply it while it migrates through the grain, so you might think things aren’t with as much contrast as you want and be tempted to put on more, but then you come back fifteen minutes later and it is too much. So, build up to what you need so that you can compose the final effect rather than having it be a surprise. He did comment that this same set of tricks applies to birds eye, too. Oh, and, yes, this will raise the grain and make your piece fuzzy. If you try to take off the fuzz with just dye on, you will likely sand through your color. You may be able to get by with a single wipe of a 600 foam pad, staying away from edges. But just don’t worry about the fuzziness. Get some finish on and, once a coat or three of finish is on, you can then scuff off the fuzz more safely and proceed with the final finish coats, scuff sanding them, too.
Let us know how your table turned out!
ps. “A coat or three” refers to a finish with high build. Slow build finishes, especially simple oils, will be different and I’m not sure how to advise for them.
- This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Ed.
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