For this tutorial, our task is to finish a chest made of birch and maple in a deep red mahogany while maintaning clarity, depth, and contrast. Rather than attempt to achieve a dark color in one step (which will lead to a splotchy, amateurish look), we will use production-style techniques employing dyes, wiping stains, glaze, and toner. In addition, all finishes used in this article will be waterborne, non-flammable products. Note: in my haste to meet a deadline, I failed to take useable photos in some steps. I will either take and post some the next time I use this finish, or make a step panel showing each phase of the finish.

First, here is a look at the unfinished piece, sanded to 150 grit:

Our first layer of color is a purplish-brown dye, sprayed lightly to establish a uniform base color that will provide our reddish undertone. I started by spraying a mist of the dye evenly across the piece – it should be so light that it goes on almost dry. Unlike most spraying, in this case it’s not a good idea to overlap your passes as you will get too much build where the overlaps are. The idea is to lay an even color down, and since we are spraying and not wiping, splotching is eliminated. Just be sure not to spray the dye so heavily that it pools on the surface and obscures the grain (dyes won’t obscure grain if allowed to penetrate, but if you build them too much on the surface like this, they will). Experiment with speed and distance on some scraps until you are comfortable with the technique. I used an inexpensive HVLP touchup gun for this, but any gun will do if you choke the fan and fluid controls back to a workable rate.

After applying the dye, here is what the chest looked like:

You can see some areas on the front panels where the color is not even – I made another pass with the dye, “fogging” it over those areas to blend them in.

The next step is to apply a wiping stain. Since we are working with splotch-prone woods here, I laid down a washcoat to help control absorption of the stain. After some experimentation, I arrived at a solution of pre-catalyzed sanding sealer thinned 20% with water. In retrospect, I should have used a slightly heavier washcoat as the stain “bit” into the wood a little more than I first thought. Spraying the washcoat allows you some flexibility in how much is built up on the surface, so my weapon of choice here was a four stage HVLP turbine gun. Once the washcoat dried, I lightly sanded the surface with 400 grit paper, applying very little hand pressure to avoid cutting through to the dye underneath (as a side note, grain raising with modern waterborne finishes is of little or no consequence). I then applied a Rosewood gel stain in the conventional wipe on, wipe off manner. When working with waterborne stains, it is important to be aware of faster dry times as compared to typical consumer oil stains. I advise working small areas, wiping thoroughly before progressing to the next area.

After the wiping stain dried, the piece had an overall red cast, which is precisely the undertone we want. The next step is to shift toward dark brown while maintaining contrast with the underlying red hue. The technique for this task is glazing (applying a thickened pigment stain over a sealer and selectively wiping/brushing it away). This will add depth and shift the color a bit. For this piece, I also used the glaze for an aged look by allowing it to collect in corners to simulate the buildup of dirt and wax over time. Before the glaze was applied, I sprayed two full coats of the sanding sealer, and sanded it out smooth when dry. Glazing techniques are beyond the scope of this article, but for this project I used a brown mahogany gel stain applied heavily, then selectively wiped with a clean cloth. On larger flat surfaces, I lightly “brushed” the glaze out with a cloth to spread it evenly, subtly shifting the color without building it up unnecessarily. The glaze is then locked down with sanding sealer.

At this point, I had a good red undertone, with some contrast and depth with the brown glaze, but determined that I still wanted an overall shift slightly toward darker brown. Since the idea is to evenly apply a subtle layer of color over the entire piece, I used toning. To make the toner, I added a small amount of dark brown dye to my topcoat, which in this case was waterborne precatalyzed lacquer. After stirring thoroughly and straining the mixture, a sprayed it in light, even passes, making a very faint adjustment in color without building the finish too much (the topcoat is often thinned when used in toner solutions, but I sprayed so little of it that it didn’t matter).

Once the toner dried, I applied three full wet coats of the precat, sanding between coats only as needed to remove dust nibs, which were minimal as this product goes tack free in about ten minutes. No additional steps were needed as the sheen was perfect and the surface smooth right off the gun.