Question
I am going to finish a table top which has a curly maple field with a cherry picture frame border. The cherry has to be color matched to some existing chairs. The maple grain will be popped, but that's all. How do you keep the stain off the maple (wicking under the masking tape)? I thought about using an automotive type of fine line tape and not letting the area get too wet. I will be spraying the dye and stain. How about a washcoat/sealer coat before masking?
Forum Responses
(Finishing Forum)
From contributor L:
I had a piece of ply glued to a piece of curly maple. The ply was to be stained black and the curly maple to be dyed red-yellow. I did the lighter color curly maple first with tape and paper covering the ply. Then I did my first coat of clear on the curly. Then I reversed the tape and paper and stained the ply black. Took the tape and paper off. I did have some bleed through, but I just rubbed hard with a dry paper towel and it came right off. I did this immediately after I stained it black. No waiting for the stain to eat into the clear coat. Clear coated the black and then sanded the tape line smooth. Then a couple of clear coats on everything and it was a super clean line. Worked out nice.
