[Woodcarver] Re: basswood

[Joyce Hanna]

I am sure this has been addressed before and had I been paying closer 
attention I might not be writing to ask:  is it possible to stain 
basswood a mahogany color?

I just stained poplar to a beautiful mahogany color using red dye in 
de-waxed shellac followed by General Finishes Rosewood water base 
stain. I put on another coat of the tinted shellac and followed that 
with Minwax wipe on poly and it came out real nice, and a very close 
match to the real stuff.

I tried the same thing on "whitewood", which looks and feels like 
basswood.  It came out very blotchy; some of it took the stain and 
some didn't.  (All of it took the shellac dye). I haven't gotten to 
the poly stage yet; I want to nail the color first.  I'm not quite 
sure how to fix it, as I don't want it too dark, either.  The 
rosewood stain just didn't seem to penetrate the wood evenly.

  Joyce