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Any furniture restoration folk on here?

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ZoolooterZoolooter Frets: 891
edited September 4 in Making & Modding
I have a very nice and quite rare mid-century Younger teak dressing table that I’ve been working on. It’s gone really well so far but the six draws are rosewood. I’ve stripped and sanded the draws to 240 and now they need staining to match the teak colour of the table. 
I’ve worked on a few guitar bodies and well aware of the how crap it can look with the stain looking blotchy, bleeding into the grain, etc. Rosewood is also quite oily which will effect how the stain takes to it.

So, any advice on working with rosewood particularly what type of stain works best. 










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  • ZoolooterZoolooter Frets: 891
    edited September 4
    Pics now added. Oh, and that's my 9 year old putting a shift in with the sanding.
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  • DartmoorHedgehogDartmoorHedgehog Frets: 945
    Not really any help (sorry) but to me it seems a shame to stain the nice rosewood to match the caramac orange of the teak - the other way round would be my preference (and probably easier).  Or just leave them as contrasting colours.
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  • ZoolooterZoolooter Frets: 891

    Not really any help (sorry) but to me it seems a shame to stain the nice rosewood to match the caramac orange of the teak - the other way round would be my preference (and probably easier).  Or just leave them as contrasting colours.

    Hers's what the matching chest of draws looks like.

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  • PennPenn Frets: 744
    edited September 5
    I’ve got a city and guilds in wood finishing and a degree in furniture making. I’ve not done any of it in 20 years. Buggered if I can remember what’s best. A dye rather than stain would probably be the trick but I’m sure others will be along to tell me to shut up soon.  

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  • DartmoorHedgehogDartmoorHedgehog Frets: 945
    Zoolooter said:

    Not really any help (sorry) but to me it seems a shame to stain the nice rosewood to match the caramac orange of the teak - the other way round would be my preference (and probably easier).  Or just leave them as contrasting colours.

    Hers's what the matching chest of draws looks like.

    Ah OK - not as orange as it looked in the first post then.  
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  • ZoolooterZoolooter Frets: 891
    DartmoorHedgehog said:
    Zoolooter said:

    Not really any help (sorry) but to me it seems a shame to stain the nice rosewood to match the caramac orange of the teak - the other way round would be my preference (and probably easier).  Or just leave them as contrasting colours.

    Hers's what the matching chest of draws looks like.

    Ah OK - not as orange as it looked in the first post then.  

    It's the bright sunlight hitting it that gives the orange glow in the pic.
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  • CorvusCorvus Frets: 3088
    tFB Trader
    That top's come out a treat...very nice.
    The drawers looks like santos rosewood aka pau ferro. You could wipe with acetone or celly thinners first, and go for stain quite soon after. Or straight on with a spirit based stain thinned with one of those.

    An oil-based stain may work but don't know, rarely touch those. I try not to have anything to do with oil where a paint will go. Wouldn't try a water-based stain with an oily type wood, might be OK, but oily-ish wood says spirit stain to me.

    Indian rosewood takes spirit stain OK just straight on, but it is a different thing.
    corvusguitarworks.com
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  • WezVWezV Frets: 17336
    I would leave it all as natural as possible and just let the wood colours do their own thing.
    Wez Venables Guitars
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  • ZoolooterZoolooter Frets: 891
    WezV said:
    I would leave it all as natural as possible and just let the wood colours do their own thing.



    The problem is that when I stripped the rest of the dresser various bits were way lighter than other parts. For instance the left leg was a lot paler than the left so I had to compensate by over dying some parts so everything matched. So I assume they did the same thing in the factory when it was originally finished and put together so it all looked perfect. Draws would have been done as well. Too much of a mis match not staining the draws IMO.
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  • ZoolooterZoolooter Frets: 891
    Corvus said:
    That top's come out a treat...very nice.
    The drawers looks like santos rosewood aka pau ferro. You could wipe with acetone or celly thinners first, and go for stain quite soon after. Or straight on with a spirit based stain thinned with one of those.

    An oil-based stain may work but don't know, rarely touch those. I try not to have anything to do with oil where a paint will go. Wouldn't try a water-based stain with an oily type wood, might be OK, but oily-ish wood says spirit stain to me.

    Indian rosewood takes spirit stain OK just straight on, but it is a different thing.

    Thanks! Quite chuffed with how it turned out. Cheers for the advice and I'll have a look into the spirt stain option.
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