On 3/16/2018 10:27 PM, Doug Miller wrote:
wrote in :

On Wed, 14 Mar 2018 15:44:33 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

I stop sanding at 150, and yeah, maple's a bitch. I use a spray/wipe/spray process where
I flood the piece, wait 60 seconds, then wipe all the excess away and let dry. The second
spray is a light coat for colour.

Gel stains help some, too.

Or dyes. Maple is notoriously difficult to stain.

I have a question. I have only used dyes on a couple of projects, on
white oak. I needed deep dark.

Anyway, have you used dyes on maple? Is that the solution?

A friend built a maple table for a customer and sanded, stained,
varnished and sanded to bare wood 3.5 times. It never looked bad until
he varnished.

Ultimately he bought a better sander and that solved half of his issues.






Hate to say it, but I would strip the rail completely, sand 80 - 120 - 150 then re-stain.
While I don't usually use a conditioner, that particular piece of wood might call for it..