DO NOT PANIC!

Since you have not topcoated the stained piece, all you need to do is
use lot of rags or heavy paper towels like Scott Shop Rags soaked with the
solvent you made your dye mixture in. Keep wiping the stained parts with
fresh soaked rags and you will get almost all the color out. At a minimum,
you will even out the color and the lap marks will not be noticeable. If
you used liquid dyes from the start and did not dilute them, water should
work just fine but you may need to follow up with alcohol.
Do not use bleaches or sand. They are unnecessary and may create more
problems than necessary.

You will be left with a piece that has a very light stain on it. You
can now restain but your starting point is the evenly colored wood that you
have. It is just like refinishing a piece. You strip everything off and
are left with something clean but not exactly like it was if it were never
stained.

In the future, try applying the stain with rags or spray on an even
coat. Just work quickly.

Good Luck.


"Gary" wrote in message
...
For the past what seems like months I have been working on a small
cabinet/nightstand for SWMBO. You know how it goes, " To build YOUR
cabinet, I'll need those raised panel bits and that dovetail jig and that
router and spindle sander,..." LOL

I am a newbie and have been experimenting with several features in this
cabinet; raised panel doors, hand cut-dovetail corners and basis
scrollwork
on the legs/feet. I have been using hard maple and maple plywood for the
carcus. For a newbie, I have been quite pleased with my work.

Well before I assemble the cabinet, I decided I should stain the parts. I
wanted to match our Pennsylvania House cherry bedroom furniture which is a
darkish brown color. Reading all about staining maple to look like cherry
here on the rec and the web, I bought aniline dyes; Antique Cherry Red and
Deep something Brown. I mixed up the Cherry Red and tested on some scrap.
Way too red. So I added just a dash of the brown. Like a chemical
reaction, the dye instantly turned a deep dark sh-- brown. I tried it on
scrap and decided that it wasn't too far from the bedroom furniture color
and decided to use it.

And so, I started slapping the stuff on my project pieces. I used a 4
inch
sponge brush to apply it. Well, it has made the biggest mess. Everywhere
the brush lapped shows a dark streak. It is impossible to get the color
to
even out. There are several dark botches where the maple/plywood soaked
the
dye right up and in other areas the wood hardly took up any dyes. You can
hardly see my beautiful hand cut dovetails. There is a white line on
each
plywood piece where the plys butt against each other. The door panels
look
like walnut stained yellow pine.

I an so disappointed it this mess. I had a really nice cabinet in the
works
that I was proud of and now its a ****ty brown mess. I have no idea of
how
to remedy this mess other than paint it white and stick it in my garage.

Gary