Stain Matching Bombay Mahogany
 

Has anyone found a stain or a combination of stains matching the color of Minwax's Bombay Mahogany Polyshade?

Here's what I've tried so far:

Red Mahogany = brown
Red Sedona = orange-ish

50% Red Mahogany / 50% Red Sedona = a good combo, but not enough red

Of course, I have yet to put on a second coat of stain or any polyurethane. I'm sure that both will darken up the color a bit, but it's still missing the red tones of the bombay mahogany ...

Any advice?

Well, I put on another coat of the Sedona and Mahogany stains.

It looks like the Red Mahogany stain has a fair amount of red in it, but after I wipe it off (letting it sit on the wood for about 15 min) only the brown remains. For some reason it's as if the wood isn't soaking in the red pigments or whatever.

I do have the wood sanded pretty fine ... it's very, very smooth. Could this be the cause? Will roughing up the wood just a bit (using 120 instead of 240 on my random orbit?) help the wood take the stain better?

What kind of wood is it?

Why can you not use the bombay mahigany?

Yes sanding with a step or two coarser will allow more stain penetration.

Remember the poly will change the look quite a bit

You can use analine wood dyes to get the reds if need be. Check out woodcraft or rockler... and of course google for more wood dye info.

Bean

Thanks for the help Bean.

It's red oak.

I could use the polyshade, but I'd rather do the staining and poly in two steps. I've tried to read up quite a bit on this and just about everything I've come across (and everyone I've talked to) says that while the all-in-one approach is okay, you can get much better results doing the staining and finishing in two separate steps.

Also, and perhaps more importantly at least to myself, I found that when I was testing out the bombay mahogany polyshade stuff, it collected in the corners causing a really dark "gooping" effect. Maybe it had to do with how I was applying it, but that's what I saw. With the stain, after wiping it off you're just left with the colored wood.

And yeah, you're right about the poly changing the appearance of the final stained/finished piece, but I believe it usually just darkens it up. Sometimes it'll yellow a bit, right? But I can't see how it'd bring out any reds ...

I'll have to roughen up one of my test pieces and stain it to see how different it turns out. I'll also put some poly on one of the other pieces to see what effect it'll have on what I've got so far.

Thanks again ...