Staining maple

victorludorum

Has anyone successfully stained maple to have a darker finish, a bit like the typical Gibson neck colour?

Andyjr1515

Not like a Gibson neck colour, but this is stained figured maple:


Oh...and this (started life as white):

WezV

Is it a neck you are staining.

Plain maple can be a bit patchy when stained with most wood stains .  Oddly, figured maple is easier to stain as you know it will go darker on the end grain and lighter on the long grain.  when its plain its harder to predict and stain doesn't take well to that long grain.  you may get some medullary flecks that don't accept stain at all.

When Gibson did maple necks they stained them prior to a tinted lacquer.  The lacquer  evens out any patchiness in the stain.  the 81 wine red I have just refinished was a good example of this.  The maple neck and top matched the mahogany body quite nicely and most would not even notice it had a maple neck.  The maple had a dark red/brown stain under the wine red lacquer.

Anyway, for taking a plain maple neck to a mahogany type colour I would start with a strong mid brown stain and maybe a touch of antique oak on top.  Avoid anything labelled as "mahogany" in colour, they tend to have a lot of red in them and don't look like natural mahogany at all.  Fiebings leather dye may be a good place to start as its very strong and stands a good chance of going on consistently.  They do a few browns, chocolate may be a good place to start

what are you planning on putting on top of the stain? 

victorludorum

It is a neck, yes. It's only a cheapo Dearmond, but I'm going to paint the body gold and thought that staining the neck would be easier than painting it, as I'm not sure about masking off the rosewood board and don't want to have line that too obvious. I think I'll just paint it black and see how it goes. Cheers chaps :-)

WezV

Painting is easier than staining maple that has already had a finish on it

victorludorum

WezV said:

Painting is easier than staining maple that has already had a finish on it

Hopefully i'll have some photos up soon...