Birch, maple, pine and fir veneered plywoods are all known for being difficult to stain, especially when waterborne stains are used. Fortunately they all look pretty good under a waterborne clear coat. If you want to provide a small amount of color to any of those a lot of woodworkers will put on a seal coat of very light (blond) de-waxed shellac before the waterborne clearcoat.



A lot of the light veneers mentioned above yellow slightly anyways so the blonde shellac is a good way to even out this effect. I tend to like natural (i.e. not stained) woods but do feel that the first three mentioned above yellow too much and do look better with just a bit of color. Fir oxidises the most of any of them but I like the way it ages to a cherry-orange hue and like it under a clear coat. Unfortunately most fir veneered plywood is construction grade.



If there is a particular color you have in mind, there are conditioners that help these plywoods take stain better and there are also aniline dyes.



There are other plywoods that stain poorly but I only mentioned the ones that are readily available. If your supplier does not have oak they probably won't have some of the other less common plywoods.



Whether waterborne stain and polyacrylic will be okay for your snake cage depends on a lot of factors. I don't think they are ideal for high humidity species. Also, waterborne stains and sealers are not very resistant to common household cleaners and disinfectants.
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Currently keeping:



6.10 Gonyosoma oxycephala (Javan, mixed colors)



1.1 Philodryas baroni



1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback

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