Stains As Imitations
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ON THE USE OF STAINS
It will be well to remember one thing as to stains. Never attempt to stain anything unless that stain is intended to produce an imitation of some real wood. There are stains made up which, when applied, do not imitate any known wood. This is bad taste and should be avoided. Again you should know that the same stain tint will not produce like effects on the different light-colored woods. Try the cherry stain on pieces of pine, poplar, and birch, and you will readily see that while pine gives a brilliant red, comparatively speaking, pine or birch will be much darker, and the effect on poplar will be that of a muddy color. In fact, poplar does not stain cherry to good advantage; and for birch the ordinary stain should have a small addition of vermilion.
By making trials of your stains before applying them to the furniture, you will readily see the value of this suggestion.