Using different timber so I don't have to stain

[echnidna]

Sorry Neil I totally forgot about shellac.

[Schtoo]

Uhh, yeah.

Sand it, I wouldn't even bother to #600, #320-400 would be enough, and put shellac on it.

Two ways you can do it, one is to brush it on, with a light sanding between coats. Another is to rub in on with a pad, again sanding between coats.

There's not much point going into lots of details here, as the hows and whys are easy to find already written up.

I will say that next time I shellac, I'll use a pad. Much nicer result, and steel wool instead of sanding.

If you need some protection against heat, alcohol or water, then provided you use de-waxed shellac you should be able to go over the top of the shellac with poly or laquer.

As for your honey/gold colour. I have a pine table here that's prolly a good match. Used a locally produced stain. Hard to really know what it is, but it was oil based and it was a dye too.

A really good idea would be to take your picture frame to a proper paint store, a goodly sized sample of your wood and ask them if they can do anything about it. When I was working in a hardware store, we had plenty of paint matching done, and a few stain matchings too. Problem with stain matching was that they could not garantee a perfect match as wood is all different. Don't think it cost very much either, maybe a free service I can't remember.

Good luck.

[ubeaut]

All you will ever need to know is here http://www.ubeaut.com.au/book.html

[AshleyM]

That's a very sore point. I lent my polishers handbook to a "mate" of mine. I haven't seen it since he took off with my wife. **** I miss that book. (True story - Neil would have credit card records to prove my purchase at least)

Especially bad when I went to the trouble of attending the Melbourne WW show a couple of years ago and got Neil to sign it for me.

[Trav]

with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Trav