Mohogany-like stain for ash?

Howie

Wooden Canoe Maniac
I've got to make some outwales for a Penn Yan Rainbow sometime soon. The originals were mahogany. I've been told that cherry has a similar grain to mahogany and I know it takes a stain well... but I have access to lots of ash. Can anyone recommend a good stain recipe/technique to get ash to look like mahogany in sunlight? I'm thinking it'd need something dark red to get the red overtones and hopefully hide the ash-y grain, then some other dark stain to darken it up. Or maybe vice-versa. I believe that jell stains can hide the grain somewhat...
 
B.N. Morris stained other wood species to match the color of mahogany. I'll give you the recipe Denis Kallery came up with.

Using Minwax products, by unit (meaning eye-dropper-full, teaspoon, cup, truckload, what-have-you):

2 parts Red Mahogany #225
2 parts Golden Oak #210B
1 part Special Walnut #224
1 part Sedona Red #222
 
The grain on ash is soooo different than mahogany. I think you will end up with dark spots and light spots.
I once tried Minwax Red Mahogany on ash... I didn't like it, personally.
You might be able to pull it off with cherry.
Too bad you don't live closer.... I could fix you up with a couple of sticks of mahogany.
It must be available in your area somewhere, even if you have to scarf join it, as close grained woods like cherry and mahogany match up pretty well.
 
Howie,

I went to the local lumber yard and got a piece of Philippian Mahogany to make the outwales for my Old Town Double End. It's not real Mahogany and the color was entirely too purple to suit me so I stained it with Minwax English Chestnut and I think the color came out real good. That type of wood is a whole lot more readily available than real Mahogany from Central America. I tried to use it on another boat but despite my best efforts at steaming it I could not bend it successfully. The Double End has a gentle shear and almost no upturn at the ends. I was able to install it dry without steaming. There are pictures of this boat in the Sailing section. Look for "Stephanie Lynn". Dave is right the grain on Ash is never going to look like mahogany regardless of the stain color.

Good luck with your project.

Jim
 
Ash is great stuff, but stained it generally still looks very much like ash, but in an obviously very unnatural color. In any shade other than maybe something light and golden to make it look older, it usually ends up looking pretty fake to anyone who knows anything about wood. Mad River used to offer dark stained ash gunwales, decks and trim on some of their light colored hulls to give the wood more contrast. It did, as you can see here, but whether or not that was a good thing is up for debate - and it still looks exactly like what it is, stained ash.
 

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Ok... What about box wood? I'll bet that'll take a take a stain nicely, and I can get a lot of it as well. Anybody have success steam bending box wood?
 
I have an early 19th century boxwood flute and also a boxwood piccolo and did some research on them. I'll share relevant parts of what I found re the wood and staining.

"A relatively lightweight, fine-grained, slightly porous, unstable, polishable, dense hardwood.... Boxwood gradually changes in color from light yellow to a yellow-brown over a period of time. Boxwood flutes that are dark brown in color have probably been stained by use of a chemical such as nitric acid. Boxwood is not good at retaining its shape, since it is porous, absorbs moisture readily, and often contains unstable "reaction wood", probably from not growing vertically. Due to these problems, it has a tendency to warp, crack, and bend with changes in humidity.... Despite these drawbacks, boxwood was a popular material for making the tubes of transverse flutes and recorders in the Baroque and Classical periods. This is probably due to its availability, beauty, easy workability, and the reputed 'sweet' sound produced from flutes made of this wood.... Careful selection and preparation of the wood, thorough seasoning and stress relieving by the flute maker before starting to make the flute, and careful adherence to the maker's care instructions by the new owner makes the warping and cracking of boxwood less likely."
 
Ok... What about box wood?

What about... mahogany? It can be found in long lengths, it steam-bends well, it's got the grain you're looking for, and you don't have to stain it to look like mahogany. Just curious.
 
Looked online and there are at least a couple of mahogany hardwood suppliers in your area. Bristol Valley and Pittsfield..
 
Yeah yeah... Have I forgotten to mention that I'm cheap?

I know - you're right.

Actually, I should start another thread - anybody got a good technique for duplicating Penn Yan's outwale shape? I do have fragments of the original. Hell - I've GOT another Rainbow with original intact outwales in the garage right now. But I haven't decided on how to make the table saw cuts yet - they (Penn Yan) must have made special shaping router blades because nothing seems to measure up easily - all the angles are odd & radii odd & compound.
 
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What are you calling boxwood? The wood the woodwind instruments are made out of comes from true box wood which is a very smallish tree and very expensive lumber. Here in the US we have a habit of applying names to different woods rather loosely. So I doubt that you are using Boxwood. Also it is frequently fumed with Nitric acid to turn it tan to brown. Violin, viola and Cello Boxwood fittings are frequently fumed. For Ash I would use a dark filler with a dark dye not an oil stain. Use the dark dye first then the filler. You want to fill the open pores of the wood so they do not look like white specks under the varnish. Cherry was frequently colored to look like Mahogany as was Walnut. Walnut grain is much closer to Mahogany than Cherry. However Cherry dyes well. Most of the alcohol and water based colors for wood are dyes not stains even though most people call them stains.
 
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