White Oak or Maple easier to work with??

[Schleeper]

White oak works pretty well...quartersawn white oak is a bit more prone to tearout from planing. Some maple works ok, especially clear soft maple but hard maple is very hard, resists sanding, and doesn't take stain well. Curly maple is prone to tearout from planing....birdseye maple even more so.

That's not the best news I've heard today. My wife and I finally decided on hard maple for our kitchen cabinets, and we intend to stain it. But one of the things that turned her off about some of the other species of wood, is the lack of uniformity of color.

I want to use a Bartley gel stain, probably the honey color. I've been happy with my previous results using their products, and might even consider their gel lacquer.

Sounds like I better pick up a little can of the stain so I can test it out on a hard maple board before I get too far down the line.

[drumpriest]

Definitely test it. I find that what works best with Maple is dye. Transtint, for instance. Gel stains are a good bet, water based stains work ok, but oil based don't do well at all. I've seen pieces entirely refuse to take color from stain.

Dye has always worked for me though.