The clearest, brightest, deepest color and shine you can achieve on maple is to stain with Aqua Fortis, then neutralize with lye, and finish with a grain filler ("spit coat") of shellac/seedlac, with an oil varnish on top. The depth and clarity will shine like a jewel.
If you put lye on the stock first, it will interfere with the aqua fortis (and usually will do nothing to the wood. SOMETIMES a lye wash will make a superb light golden brown on maple, but not always. The lye reacts with tannic acid in the wood, and maple generally seems to be low in tannic acid. Lye has a much greater reaction with cherry wood, which is rather high in tannic acid.)
An oil finish (rather than shellac filler) will darken the wood, and kill some of the brilliance and 3 dimensional effect since it is filling the grain with a somewhat more opaque substance (though it still looks really good). With aniline dyes or pigment stains, you might as well be painting the curl on, as the grain is crammed with pigment and the depth is destroyed.
In my not-so-humble opinion... :wink:
