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I purchased walnut slab cabinets in Tamarack from City Cabinets (which are gorgeous btw), and I’m trying to match this tamarack stain for a custom front face on a cabinet I’m building. Anyways, I bought the tamarack stain from you guys as well, but I cannot get it to match at all. It’s far too warm/light compared to the doors of the cabinets I bought. I’ve tried several methods and used the recommended poly as well as other types/colors as well.
Is there a particular kind of walnut that’s used for the veneer? Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated, as this custom front face will be next to these cabinet doors from you guys and I really need them to match.
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Is the application making the stain appear blotchy? Do you have a photo you could post?
There are several ways to apply stain. Our process is not the easiest to replicate on site, and depending on the tools you have available, achieving a perfectly uniform match can be difficult. That said, you can get extremely close. Applying stain with a foam brush or rag, is more of an entry-level approach and can result in uneven absorption, especially across different wood types.
Do you have a sprayer? Ideally, to best match our process, you would use an HVLP sprayer and apply two separate light coats of stain, allowing each coat to dry in between. This closely mirrors how we apply stain in-house: we spray using a four-gun cabinet system, stack the parts in an oven for approximately 12 minutes to allow the stain to set, then force-dry them using heated air and infrared light—similar to our final topcoat process on cabinet doors. Applying stain in two light passes helps maintain uniformity, as light spots can develop with hand application or inconsistent spraying.
This is the sprayer I purchased a while back for personal projects. The cost is quite high, and if you’re only trying to match a single door, it’s likely not a practical option:
3M Performance Spray Gun Starter Kit, 26778, Includes PPS 2.0 Paint Spray Cup System, 15 Replaceable Gravity HVLP Atomizing Heads, Air Control Valve
If budget is a concern, Harbor Freight can be a good option for an inexpensive sprayer. Another alternative would be to try a basic spray bottle from Home Depot. I haven’t personally tested this method, but the theory is sound and it may work reasonably well to lightly mist the stain and achieve a more even application.
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The bottom portion of your wood sample does appear a bit light. Most black walnut is typically fairly dark, and while the grain of your sample does look consistent with walnut, the color of the veneer itself is on the lighter side.
Normally, I would say that most walnut veneer is sourced from the same mills in the eastern United States. However, I have been seeing more products advertised from a wider range of sources lately, so I can’t say with certainty why this particular piece is so light. It appears to resemble walnut sapwood, which is typically taken from the outer portion of the walnut tree.
I will post a few photos of the walnut plywood we currently have on the shop floor from another project so you can gauge how dark the walnut veneers we are using actually are. I will also include a reference image showing walnut sapwood alongside the range of typical walnut color variation. That said, veneered walnut is almost always sourced from the heartwood, which is the most desirable part of the tree, so I’m not sure why veneer would be taken from sapwood—this is very uncommon.
Please note we sell plywood doors and drawer fronts by themselves over on barkerdoor.com. They are not expensive.
https://www.barkerdoor.com/Slab-Flat-Wood-Cabinet-Doors-s/54.htm
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The raw material looks good. Have you applied the clear coat over the stain on that sample? The stain usually tones down once the clear top coats are added, so that may be why the color appears a bit stark. Our piece has the final top coats applied, which blend the underlying stain and slightly soften the contrast.
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Hmm, yes, then it would likely be either the natural color variation of the underlying walnut or the process in which the stain is being applied.
Perhaps adding additional coats would help achieve a closer match. We spray all stains onto the panels, and then they sit in a stacking oven for about 12 minutes while the stain slowly dries. This spraying technique allows more stain to remain on the surface, whereas wiping tends to remove a significant amount from the face.
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It was in fact the undertone of the walnut wood I purchased. I did buy a sprayer and while that did make it darker, it was still too warm/red. I ended up doing one layer of a green wash (used a diluted green stain) to counteract the red tones, then used the tamarack stain. I also noticed the satin polycrilic was too shiny to match, and the matte one was much closer, but ended up doing a 90% matte to 10% satin ratio of the polycrylics to get it to match spot on. Now that I got my test pieces to match, I can proceed. Thanks for all your help!
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Nice, this is great feedback on stain applications.
We are currently working on some new tint options this month. The issue with stains is that they can be problematic to apply in the field, especially on existing millwork or other on-site items.
We have made some progress with adding pigments directly into the clearcoat finish, which allows us to skip the stain application step before the clearcoat is applied. This helps tone down the natural grain and color variation of the wood, making it possible to either lighten or darken the material in a much more consistent way. The underlying grain and color tone become less dominant in the final look.
Most recently, we tested what we are calling a Weathered finish. This is a clearcoat with a small amount of Italian-made titanium dioxide added as pigment. The effect is that it softly washes out the color of the material while still allowing some of the wood grain to show through, almost like a subtle mask. It is very promising.
For the Tamarack color, we tested what we will internally call a Smoked finish. The Smoked finish is great because it creates a very tasteful, minimal layer that slightly darkens the material to mimic Tamarack, but without adding red tones.
I will post pictures of the tests so we can all review. Note that this is in testing only, we may not add these to the website, just testing for fun 😉
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