# Stain for Oak to match Sapele



## Sir Percy (9 Nov 2016)

Hi,
Could anyone suggest or recommend a stain for oak to match some sapele, please?
They'll both be finished with a clear varnish.
The sapele is a number of pieces in a range of light pinky orange hues - 





when I've varnished this stuff before, it's come out quite dark





The oak is quite blonde - would the shade after being stained be close to that after varnishing, or does the stain stop that darkening effect of the varnish?
I'll try to post a picture of the oak.

Thanks for your help!


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## custard (9 Nov 2016)

That's a tough challenge Sir Percy. Oak and Sapele differ in lots of ways besides colour. Oak has a coarser grain, if the Oak boards are quarter sawn you'll also have that unique look of medullary rays, and Sapele has an equally distinctive ribbon grain.

If this is for external woodwork on your boat then any stain will get bleached out within a few months, so you'd have to use pigment rather than stain which then muddies the grain and isn't to everyone's taste. Neither stain nor pigment will prevent the wood darkening when varnished.

The easiest way would be to use a Mahogany varnish (interior or exterior varnish depending upon location) on the Oak, indeed try applying it to _both_ the Oak and the Sapele if possible. Try it on scrap and see if it meets your expectations. But you need to be realistic, without an insane amount of effort you're not going to get a particularly close match, the best you can hope for is to _slightly_ bridge the gap. 

Your boat, your rules, but personally I'd just accept the different look of these very different timbers and finish with regular Hempel, International, or whatever your favourite marine varnish happens to be.

Good luck!


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## Sir Percy (10 Nov 2016)

Thanks as ever, Custard.
The grain of each will be running perpendicular, it's just the lightness of the oak that I want to tone down:




This will be exterior fitting, and I've already bought the varnish (Epifanes) so will look out for mahogany varnish (just been in an SDM and didn't find any) and test both out.

Cheers!


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## YoungSalt (23 Nov 2016)

Epifanes make a mahogany stain which can be used to both stain the wood and can be added to epifanes single component varnish. Just consider slightly what custard has said about uv - it will bleach the sapele to a yellow colour over time, until colour scraped, so the contrast is always going to be there and will get better and worse over time as the sapele changes colour. Just my 10p's worth as a traditional wooden boatbuilder/restorer. Ps, a spirit stain all over after sanding, so it will be ready for varnish, will both resist the uv and possibly help blend, but you will have to be quite skilled in dyes/stains to match the two and if adding to the epifanes varnish after staining, you can in my experiance use more than they say successfully for a stronger tint, but whatever dye/stain/tinted finish, be careful not to overdo it and 'muddy' the grain :/


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