Need help staining Cabinets.

You might try to apply a pre-stain wood conditioner to help seal the plywood a little. I don’t know if Sherwin Williams sells it. The brand I have used before is Varthane. This might slow the absorption rate and aid in an even stain without blotches.

-- My favorite piece is my last one, my best piece is my next one.

You might also try sanding the plywood to a finer grit, say 320 and the face frames only to 180. That will give the stain more to hold onto on the face frames and less on the plywood. And like Trifern said, use a sanding sealer on the ply.

-- Tim -- http://tmuli.com

Hey Griff-
I have built a few cabinets with Birch and then stained. Had one customer that was real picky about blotching and wanted a very even color on all the parts. I learned an awlful lot on that project.
The process I came up with was to spray dye/stain. I used and still use Mohawk penetrating stain, which is alcohol based. One I dialed in the gun it was pretty easy to get an even coat.
The doors were frame and panel so I stained the center panels and the door frames seperatly, but at the same time.
Oil based stains such as SW are really hard to use on Birch, even with a pre-stain conditioner. Also, I did not have much luck with shellac as a barrier coat.
I spoke with Jeff Jewitt and he was the one who suggetsed using dye, and thats where I had my best results.

HTH-feel free to contact me with any questions.
Dave

-- MISSION FURNITURE-My mission is to build furniture