mahogany stain is required, it should be made to match ordinary baywood as nearly as possible. For furniture and better-class work, a good mahogany effect may be obtained by oil staining with burnt sienna and Vandyke, and, when dry, over-glazing with ordinary victoria or mahogany lake in water. If the wood is at all sappy and strong in markings of a nature contrary to mahogany, it must first be sized, stopped, and then oil-stained.
Cheap water stains may be made easily from any of the above pigments, which, whether used in oil or water mixtures, should always be purchased ready ground. Nearly all these colors have a natural binding quality with water alone, but the addition of a little beer will easily bind ivory or vegetable black. Water stains must always be applied directly upon the wood, and therefore there is a double disadvantage in using them. The stain itself has no filling power, so that a second coat of either size or varnish is necessary, and water stain does not spread so well with the brush as oil. Preferably, water stain is applied with a piece of sponge, and superfluous stain should be wiped off the surface.
Maple and satinwood imitations, when grained on white wood, are executed with the same water pigments and process as upon paint. The wood for these two varieties must be free from grain or knot, and must first be once sized and varnished with the whitest materials. This gives a non-absorbent ground for working the distemper stains upon. When the figure is completed another good coat of varnish gives a capital surface.
Walnut, mahogany, and similar dark woods must have the grounds sized, and then colored with oil stain to the shade nearest to the usual grounding paint. The size and stain together will suffice for working upon, but two coats of varnish are required for dark imitations of this kind. With walnut and mahogany the first coating is applied spar-
