How to stain Meranti door to look like Oak?

kpreston

Hi,

I am wondering if it is poissble to make meranti doors look like oak to match close to the desk? And if so, what would the process be?

Original plan was to paint black, but now I really like the wood look and if I can would love to match Oak. If not, I will go back to my original plan.

I can see a lot of red/pink in the current Meranti.

Thank you for any feedback!

EricL

Hello @kpreston

Matching one timber species to another is surprisingly difficult. In fact, it's often hard enough to stain one piece of oak to match another oak furniture piece, let alone convincingly make a completely different timber like meranti look like oak.

The biggest challenge in your case is that meranti naturally has those pink and reddish tones and is already considerably darker than your blonde oak desk. Unfortunately, stains can only add colour, not lighten the timber, so applying an "oak" stain would most likely just make the meranti darker while the underlying red tones still show through.

Looking at your photos, I actually don't think the two timbers clash. They are clearly different species, but they complement each other quite well.
If you'd only be happy with a very close match, I'd probably recommend sticking with your original idea of painting the doors. Otherwise, I'd be inclined to leave the meranti as it is and let it be its own feature rather than trying to force it to resemble oak.

If you need further assistance, please let us know.

Eric