Q: I built a small table from reclaimed mahogany. There is a lot of variance in the colour and grain pattern. I want to stain this so to even out the colour. What do you recommend?
A: Most pigmented stains work very well on mahogany to even coloration, in large part because they take full advantage of the large pores. In extreme cases, we usually use a two stage approach to making wildly varying woods look one color; we start by making the background uniform with a dye stain, usually in a color in between the darkest and lightest values to bring the two together. Once the dye is dry, we follow up with a pigmented stain to add unifying color atop the dye and in the pores. It works surprisingly well.
Michael Dresdner
straight talk about wood finishing
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