Glazing Over Stained Finish

ChuckEA

I've been asked by a client to match the finish of his kitchen cabinets on some built in shelving that I'm building for him. The existing cabinets are made of maple and have a natural finish with what appears to be a dark brown glaze in the groved/recessed areas. Overall the cabinets have a satin/semi-gloss sheen. I'll be building the shelves of solid maple and maple faced plywood. I've been able to get the matching stain from the cabinet supplier but am unsure about the process to follow to apply the glaze and finish coatings. My initial thinking is to start with applying the natural stain, followed by the glaze, and then finishing with several thin coats of polyurethane. I was thinking of applying the stain and glaze by hand and then spraying the poly with a HVLP sprayer. Would apprecaite any advice on how to proceed or any good resources (books or articles) that describe the detailed steps to follow. TIA

jensenconstruction

In my area most cabinet shops use lacquer stains that need to be sprayed so make sure you verify you have a wiping stain and not a lacquer stain.

I find when trying to match special finishes its best to get some pieces of the material and just start trying the methods I feel will best duplicate the finish and I'm happy with it.

DeanV

The right procedure is to stain, seal and then glaze, otherwise the wood will takes on too much glaze and turn dark. Depending on the nature of the glaze, you may need to use lacquer since the higher end glazes usually are acetone/alcohol for solvents and may bite too much into some finishes. You could try the oil or waterbase glazes also though and those would work fine with any finish.

colin

Woodweb finishing forum is a good source of all this kind of stuff, do a search there will be loads info, having said that sounds like you are on the right track.

Teetorbilt

Save plenty of scraps from your project and play with them before moving on to 'the big one'. You can spend a lot of time and scraps to get it right but it's better than a PO'd customer and refinishing a project in the field.

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ChuckEA

Thanks guys for all the good advice. One follow up question: Is there an easy way to identify a wiping stain from a laquer stain?