Slightly OT: Interior Wood finishing

[Rocky]

I have a local woodworker working on 5 pieces of wood that I'm going to use in the interior of my truck project. One piece runs the width of the dash and the other 4 are on the door panels (it's a crew cab). The truck is going to have a wine/maroon colored interior. The wood, unfinished, is a light blond color...about a neutral shade ,or even lighter, of tan. I'm trying to figure out how I want to have this finished and if I should also have it stained first. I forgot to mention that it's going to have woodgrained dinoc on the ouside. Should I try to match the dinoc or will it look ok to leave it unstained and simply seal it?

Rocky

[greg 79 F150]

It is really up to what you personally , like the looks of. Not all people want their mods to look like someone elses. Over the last 30 years every interior I have seen the manufacturer/ customizer , color cordinated the dash color with the seat color, with the door panel color. Just remember if you choose to stain the wood dark, it will be a bear to lighten it back up. good luck jmo

[Phil V]

I had an F-150 4X4 a couple years back that I removed some of the plastic dash parts and a piece on each door panel and hand made new parts out of oak. I stained the oak a darker almost caramel color and it surprised me how well it all came out. One problem to keep in mind is that if you stain the wood a darker color then when that wood trim gets nicked (and it will get nicked) then the nick in the wood will be a lighter color than the stain.