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That wood has a funny green stripe in it. How would that look with a light stain?
Poplar can show a wide variety of colors ranging from pale yellow to deep purple, plus green, brown and grey. We hand-pick each board to minimize color variation, but some is always inevitable. Me, I’m color-blind, so slap a brown stain on anything and it looks great to me. Consequently, I am often very insecure when packing up a Percolator kit: Is this piece green? Or grey? Or brown? Will it, in fact, look okay to a normally-sighted individual when stained dark? What if they stain it light?
To put all such worries to rest, I present several Percolators successfully finished with light stains and glazes:
The whitish antique stain (sometimes called “pickling white”) actually increases the contrast between different parts of the grain, while also imposing a unifying whitewash color.
This is Valspar Pecan stain that was allowed to dwell (wet) on the wood for a full 15 minutes before wiping. Sometimes a light stain like this will accentuate color variations rather than unify them, so this can be risky.
Here is a custom glaze finish. Glazes leave some translucent color on the surface of the wood. The effect is like looking at the cabinet through a stained-glass window, or like wrapping the wood in colored celophane. This will tend to unify the color more than other techniques, while still allowing the grain to show through.To conclude, I say this: Light stains can be tricky, but as you see here they can yield terrific results. If in doubt, practice on the inside surface of a part that will be unseen. And remember, if you like the way it looks, then it is beautiful. I owned a custom cabinet shop for years before going in to amp sales. I often had to encourage insecure customers that if they liked the finish, then that’s all that counts.
