Stain On Lumber Other Than Oak

There’s no hard-and-fast rule that says you can’t substitute pine, poplar, or any of a number of other woods for oak. In fact, some other wood species might be a better choice for certain projects.

First, let’s take a quick look at what red oak (the most common variety for lumber) has to offer. It’s dense, strong, machines well, and has the pronounced grain pattern or figure common to ring-porous hardwoods. Those pores and patterns are what give oak its distinctive look, which staining accentuates even further. Depending on their original orientation of the growth rings in the board, oak can have a prominent arch or “cathedral” pattern or a straight grain (rift) or flecked (quartersawn) pattern. And while it has a naturally pink or light reddish cast, it takes stain colors readily and uniformly and so can offer a lot of versatility when it comes to color. You can get a nice light golden color or push it to a deep brown, or even use aniline dyes to make it bright red, yellow, blue, or green.

Pine and poplar are less expensive alternates and can work fine for many projects, though typically they don’t take stain as consistently as red oak does. Like other conifers (softwoods), pine has a sometimes unruly grain and contains resin concentrations or pitch pockets that can interfere with stain absorption. You can get blotchy coloring if you don’t use a stain conditioner beforehand. Also, it’s softer and dents more easily than oak, though the lighter weight can be a plus.

Like oak, poplar is a hardwood but it isn’t as dense or strong, nor does it machine as cleanly. The softer close-grained fibers sometimes yield a fuzzy surface that makes stain colors look muddy, and some boards have streaks of yellow, green, or brown that can’t be masked easily. The grain patterns are much more subdued than with oak, which can be an advantage if you want to accentuate just the color and not have pronounced figure.