Louvre Doors Timber

[adrock]

Hi Guys,

I've had a click around the forum and the web to try and identify this timber these doors are made of but I'm a major rookie so am not getting far.

I need to build a timber bathroom vanity that's not going to be too inconsistent with the colour and grain of the doors. So if it's too hard to identify this wood (which may be possible), can you suggest a similar timber that's not to hard to find boards of?

*note the redness in photo 1 is not accurate - colours are shown in Photos 2 and 3 - iphone camera limitations.

Photos 1
http://www.dropbox.com/s/h5k9fl29u4f...o%201.JPG?dl=0

Photo 2
http://www.dropbox.com/s/neh5rxr7m8e...o%202.JPG?dl=0

Photo 3
https://www.dropbox.com/s/48hhr60o01...o%203.JPG?dl=0

Cheers,
adam

[rustynail]

Looks like Pacific Maple with a light stain. Easy timber to get.

[Chief Tiff]

I think its probably merbau/kwila. Cheap Indonesian hardwood available DAR from almost anywhere.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

+1 for Pacific Maple (aka Meranti)

[RoyG]

I think you'd be able to get acceptably close to the grain pattern using Merbau (also marketed as Kwila), or Meranti (also marketed as Pacific Maple), or even one of the timbers that are marketed under the trade name "Tasmanian Oak". All are usually available at the bigger Bunnings and Masters stores, but are also available at considerably cheaper prices if you go to a timber merchant.

Which ever timber you pick, you'll have to experiment with a few different stains and varnish combinations to find a colour that comes close to the existing doors. If the existing doors are looking a bit sad, it might be best to give them a sand a few coats of oil based poly urethane varnish, bufore you try doing any colour matching with the wood you'll use to build the vanity.

Being a bathroom vanity, I'd recommend using an oil based Poly Urethane Varnish (e.g. Cabothane Oil Based Varnish) as the finish, so that you get the most durable finish. For a bathroom, apply a minimum of three coats of the varnish. The oil based poly urethane varnish is yellow coloured, and will impart a goldenish colour to the timber, without any stain being applied to the timber first. Brush a test sample of your chosen timber with one coat of the Poly Urethane varnish, let it dry and see how it goes for colour match. If you're lucky, the colour will match the existing doors closely enough. Additional coats of the varnish usually don't change the colour further; the additional coats just build up the film thickness (more durability), and even out the sheen of the finish.

If the resulting colour on the test sample is too light with just the oil based varnish on it, you'll need to use a stain under the varnish to darken the wood a bit before varnishing.

If the colour of the test sample is too dark once you've put the oil based poly urethane varnish on an unstained sample, you've got two options, one easy and one challenging.

The easy solution is to try a Water Based Poly Urethane Varnish (e.g. Cabothane Water Based Poly Urethane Varnish). The water based Poly Urethane is a milky colour in the can, but dries dead clear, and imparts no colour to the wood. However, Water Based Poly Urethane is probably not going to be as durable as Oil Based Poly Urethane Varnish on a bathroom vanity. If you're lucky, using a water based Poly Urethane will result in a finished colour that is a closer match to the colour of the existing doors.

The difficult solution to the problem of the colour of the test sample being too dark with just the oil based varnish on the sample, would involve bleaching the timber in some way, and is not recommended as you usually end up with an unevenly bleached and ugly finish. A better approach could be to buy a small sample of the chosen species of the timber from Bunnings and/or Masters, and doing the colour matching tests before committing to buying all the timber needed to build the vanity.

For stains, there are swags of different brands and different chemistry's of stain on the market. But, seeing you're probably going to need to try a few different stain colours to get the best colour match, I'd suggest using Feast Watson Proof Tint stains. Feast Watson sell small sample bottles of their stains (about 50 mls per bottle) and you can buy a few of these small bottles in the stain colours that you think will be close, so you can test the stain on some sample pieces of timber. The colour charts for any stains are not much use, because the final colour is dependant on both the actual colour of the wood, and on the colour of the varnish (i.e. how much of a golden hue the varnish puts onto the wood). Note that Feast Watson Proof Tint is a spirit based stain, so you clean up brushes etc with Metholated Spirits.

Hope that info helps. Good luck with the project.

Regards,

RoyG

[adrock]

Ripper guys, and thanks Roy for the thoughtful response. Ive played with those Feast Watson sample pots which are handy. I'm quite nervous about timber in the bathroom (which seems all the rage these days), so will probably do whatever will be more durable. The doors definitely need a bit of work so will do that too.

Will see what I can come up with - will post some photos when I'm done in a few months if they're not too shameful

[rustynail]

Its a brave man who will use Kwila in a wet area. The risk of sap stain is a real worry.

[dai sensei]

+1 for Pacific Maple (aka Meranti)

+2