Staining Maple

[whitebear]

While reading the thread on oxidizing cherry I got to wondering about using easy off oven cleaner on maple.  Anyone have any experience with this?

[Acer Saccharum]

I think Maple does not have much tannic acid it it, so it may not be affected much by oven cleaner. This may not be correct, but it's something like that.

[Bioprof]

I know some builders that use a lye treatment before using alcohol stains.  It's supposed to make the curl more vivid, similar to the effect that you get with AF.  It doesn't change the color of the wood though.

[Eric Laird]

I used it on a barn gun I built a while ago. The friend for whom I was building it prefers lighter wood so I used a fairly plain piece of maple and tried the easy-off on it. It brought out what little figure there was and gave a light honey color - much lighter than AF, but definitely darker than unstained maple. I no longer have a photobucket acct but if someone wants to post a picture or two, I can email the photos. I'm just finishing up a little .30 cal squirrel rifle and am considering using the lye treatment on it, or maybe one of the other less common stains like asphaltum or "tobacco in ammonia". I really prefer AF for the most part but this one has a very plain stock and it gives me a chance to mess around and experiment without screwing up a beautiful piece of wood.
Eric

[Curt Larsen]

In a similar vein, I'm looking for a way to darken some repairs on a maple stock.  I generally use Laurel Mountain cherry and Lancaster Maple or nut brown when I finish, but these small wood inlet repairs on the stock I'm working on seem harder than the rest of the stock.  One friend of mine uses dark brown shoe dye, but I'm looking for other ideas.

[Buzzard]

I use Magic Maple, a water based stain. You can dilute it to any color you want. Typically a reddish/brown. 50/50 takes it down to a honey color.