Furniture and Furnishings - making oak look like mahoganny

can anyone suggest how I can stain an oak shelf to match my mahoganny furniture?
we built the shelf, and tried two stains, minwax red mahoganny and olympic merlot.
but, because the oak is lighter than real mahoganny we can't get a dense coloration.

I can think of two ways to go:

1- a heavy bodied glaze to darken the color, followed by the top coat of your choice.

2- Minwax polyshades (or similar product that incorporates color and finish in one application). The more coats you apply, the darker it gets.

Be aware that polyshades can be tricky - applying color and finish at the same time can lead to streaks in the color unless you're very careful.

I assume you're already aware that a color match will not make the oak look like mahogany - there's too much difference in the grain.

As George said, you can't really make the oak look like mahogany but you can get the color to be similiar.

The way I would do it would be to use a stain to get it as close as I could, then use a clear sealer/poly. I would then use a tinted poly/varnish to finish getting the color/look right. Always top coat with a clear poly/varnish to protect the color.


"Be aware that polyshades can be tricky - applying color and finish at the same time can lead to streaks in the color unless you're very careful."

this bares repeating - tinted poly must be applied evenly. Lap marks or runs/puddles will have twice the color, missed areas will get no color