Staining Tulipwood aka. American Poplar

[Andy Kev.]

I'm just finishing up a shoe rack built in tulipwood and thought I'd stain it. So I put some alledgedly walnut coloured stain on a test piece and it came up looking like purple heart! This led me to think "to hell with it" and I just whacked some good old danish oil on. It looks OK because it's nice pale wood with attractive figure i.e. not the green effect which you can get with tulipwood.

However, if I did want to stain the stuff a nice golden brown colour (as opposed to a walnut colour), does anybody have any recommendations for a stain that will do it?

 

[Terry Smart]

You'll no doubt get a million and one different opinions (well, something close anyway) on this one. We sell a lot of our Spirit Stain into the bespoke picture framing industry where Tulip is very popular and it is very well received. 12 different colours available covering most shades.

Terry

 

[custard]

It's one thing using spirit stain on a picture frame, even a complete beginner could maintain a wet edge right around a job like that.

But the problem on most furniture making projects is it's difficult to maintain a wet edge. Personally I'd recommend a water based stain for this reason, it just dries much more slowly so you won't get "tide lines" where you've stained over a perviously dried edge.

I appreciate spirit based has the reputation of being more lightfast, but I've never found all that much difference in practise, in truth tneither are all that great! If you're really focussed on lightfastness then maybe metallised stains are the better answer.

 

[Terry Smart]

Applying Spirit Stains to large areas isn't what we're talking about here (unless it's a shoe rack for Imelda Marcos), but even so it's not difficult to get an even finish on bigger pieces. It's just a case of applying the stain liberally over the whole area and then wiping it down to remove the surplus. It's quick drying, not instant!

Not all Spirit Stains are created equally and it's a misunderstood term by some. Speaking for ours, they use pigments tested on the Blue Wool Scale and all score very high, meaning they are very fade resistant. Some water stains have the same ability.
It's their lightfastness that makes them popular with framers (among others) as no-one wants a faded frame.

Terry

 

[custard]

The average hobbyist doesn't want an inventory of different stains for different sized jobs, they want one stain that's suitable for both large and small, and that means water based wins out over spirit based.

 

[Terry Smart]

...which just goes to prove what I've always known, our customers are an above-average bunch!

 

[Rorschach]

I really must try the chestnut wood colours, I have used the rainbow stains and been very happy and my current set of spirit dyes is almost gone.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

The average hobbyist doesn't want an inventory of different stains for different sized jobs, they want one stain that's suitable for both large and small, and that means water based wins out over spirit based.

custard, if grain raising is considered an issue, along with required speed of application with spirit dyes and stains, an alternative might be oil based colourants. They're relatively slow drying and don't raise the grain. Fiddes is one brand, but the colour range is relatively limited. I'm not sure if Chestnut make an oil based dye or stain, but I do rather like them for certain jobs. Slainte.

 

[Trevanion]

I was just about to say, but as Richard said, The Fiddes NGR Stains are great for woods where the grain will tend to raise quite a bit, and there's a good selection of colours to choose from. They can also be thinned down to a degree to give a little less colour if that's the goal. I think you can put pretty much anything oil or shellac based on top of it, not sure about water based finishes though, I've never tried it.

 

[RobinBHM]

I once worked at the Ducal pine factory.

NGR spirit stain was sprayed on, then ragged off -the smell used to make me feel after a few hours!

Those were the days, pine stained 'Victorian' 'rosewood' 'yew'

For anything but a small jog spirit staind need to be sprayed with a wet coat all over, then ragged off.

Tulip isnt the greatest to stain, esp as it has green and brown streaks.....

 

[Andy Kev.]

Thanks for the replies.

I will try a couple of different stains on a bit of scrap left over from the project.

I think it's worth making the effort with tulipwood because if you've got a bit with nice grain - as I have in this case - and there's none of the green or brown bits, it could be made to look very good indeed or at least I would hope so.