I’m trying to come up with a plan.
I have Anderson windows and sliding doors (pine).
I’m planning on trimming the house in cherry (When I get around to it).
I was thinking of-
De-waxed shellac
Then min wax stain
then a top coat of oil based Varithane.
Any thoughts?
Replies
DO SAMPLES FIRST!
Just a few thoughts following up on my previous post to you on this topic:
You might wanna re-think staining the cherry. Cherry gets pretty dark all by itself, without stain. Stained cherry may wind up too dark for you -- your call. Natural cherry is pretty tough to beat, color-wise. IMHO, if you are going to stain it, you may as well use a cheaper wood. For example, I've had good results using soft maple to get faux cherry. This will also result in making a match between the pine and trim easier, since both start out pretty much the same color. (See below.)
Do NOT stain the windows/doors until after you have at least a sample of your cherry finished and aged. If you do, they won't match because, unless you "paint" your cherry like furniture factories tend to do, the cherry will quickly darken with age -- the windows/doors won't. Do not expect to use the same stain color on the cherry and the pine.
I know it's all the rage to seal cherry with a washcoat of shellac to prevent "blotching" and then stain. If you do this, you'll need to use a pretty thin cut of shellac and, preferably, a gel stain. (I personally don't like this method, but hey, I'm odd.) Otherwise, get a scrap of cherry, oil it with something like clear Watco or BLO, let it dry *completely*, and apply the topcoat of your choice. Try it -- you'll like it. ;-)
Whatever you decide, first get some cherry and play around with it until you find the combination you like. Then worry about matching it.
Oh, and check your wallet before you start. Cherry trim gets a tad pricey. ;-0
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Oops!
Miscommunication, I wasn't intending on staining the cherry.
Just need to add color to the pine. The Cherry was going to get a simple Waterlox (or similar)
treatment. I don't mind waiting for it to darken, time fly's
you know.
It keeps coming back to sealcoat-stain-lacquer.
One problem is my inexperience with those materials, and
the other is my worries about durability. I would feel better
with a more water proof top coat. I have a cherry test board with water lox. It's been my computer
desk coaster for five years or so. Nice and dark and still keeps
the coffee out.
"Oops!Miscommunication, I wasn't intending on staining the cherry.Just need to add color to the pine."
Ah. My faith in my fellow man is restored! ;-)
In that case, I see no need to preseal the pine. If you are really worried about durability/waterproofness on your windows/doors (tho' you may be a bit TOO concerned), try one of the finishes designed for kitchen cabs. They now make water-based ones that are pretty nice.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Henley,
The Cherry was going to get a simple Waterlox (or similar)treatment. I don't mind waiting for it to darken, time fly'syou know.
The thing I would be concerned with is that I don't think you can predict how dark the cherry will get over time; so it will most likely not match the stained pine. That may not be that big of a deal around windows as the light will probably vary anyway.
Just my thought(s),
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 8/5/2008 8:05 am ET by KiddervilleAcres
In general, it is not possible to match pine to cherry. No matter what type of stain or dye that you use (and a dye would be the way to go if you want to change the color of pine), you cannot achieve a match that will last.
Even if you get an initial perfect color match, the cherry will change color (generally, it will darken) and the dye on the pine will also change. The result after a few years might be pleasing, but it also might not turn out well at all. Dyes typically color shift on exposure to sunlight, and the shift depends on a lot of complicated factors such as the degree of sun exposure, the color of the wood under the dye, the specific dye and concentration used, and the degree of UV absorbers in the top coat.
So... I would consider framing the windows in pine to match the windows, and color both to your liking with aniline dye. The dye will shift color over time, but since the underlying wood is a match, the difference in color shift between them will be a lot less than the combination you're proposing.
Ahhhh the elusive cherry. You can chsae it all you want but you'll never catch it!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I'm not trying to make pine look like cherry ,but rather make the two
look well together.
hopefully in a fairly simple and repeatable fashion.
Personally, I would leave both unstained. With a moderately dark varnish like the Waterlox. both will be "ambered" a bit. Over time, both will darken, the cherry doing so to a greater extent, but I don't think the natural colors will be other than harmonious, either to begin or as they age.
You know as I over think and analyse this
that was where I tend to want to go.
I can't recall seeing it done, so it has me worried.
Plus the doors and windows are 35 years old so the pine
isn't all that bright anymore.
So - Are you trying to change the shade of the pine to a more red color, or are you trying to match the lightness/darkness difference between the pine and cherry. The first is possible, the second is not (at least on a permanent basis).
A comment about filling nail holes in cherry - don't do it. Set the nailer (assuming you're using a pneumatic nailer) to leave the pin nails exactly flush with the surface. They will be obvious initially, but will be far less noticeable as the cherry darkens. Even a dark putty will be a mis-match for the cherry over time, and tends to make the filled hole larger than the visible portion of the nail. In fact, considering that this is trim, you have a lot of it to do, and there's no load-bearing involved, I'd use a 23 gauge headless brad nailer.
Good tip on the nailing. I have a 15G. finnish nailer and wasn't looking forward to color matching the filler.
Actually I'm not all that fussy about matching perse, rather making
the whole situation seem to fit together.
Work has me running around pretty hard right now, but as soon as I
can I'm going to pick up some De-waxed shellac to try a stain test
on the pine.
If it's easy to repeat and has a pleasant appearance I will go for it. If
Not, maybe it's time to just tung oil the pine and take it from there.
I would definitely not recommed putting tung oil on either pine or cherry. It will blotch horribly (as will pigment stain, and to a lesser extent, aniline dye). The trick is to pre-treat the pine with a sizing. You can either make this yourself with either yellow or white PVA glue diluted about 90/10 water to glue, or use about a 1 lb. cut of shellac before putting on the stain/dye.
You can also buy Zinser "Seal Coat" which is de-waxed shellac, though you will want to cut it about 50/50 with denatured alcohol.
You can also just tint the shellac as a topcoat with aniline dye, though I would still suggest a first coat of undyed shellac.
I had a similiar situation a few years ago with new pine windows in my kitchen. The job was to match it to 40 year old soft maple that had mellowed to a honey color. I tried many stains and dyes on samples, all looked bad. What I ended up doing was tinting the oil based satin poly that I was going to finish them with. It took 4 thin coats to get a perfect match.
On the job in question, this could work along with a stain or dye on the pine if the cherry is stained and not left natural.
Interesting,I've done some cherry floors with Waterlox and had
no problems.
I was thinking of tinting the seal coat, I've always know it as
a "Toner". I'm surprised by the negative opinion of unstained cherry.To
me the irregularities over time are attractive,within reason.
You know, I should have qualified my statment - some cherry will blotch horribly if an oil-based finish, stain or aniline dye is applied over the raw wood. And in my (rather unpleasant) experience, flat-sawn grain is the worst and most unpredictable. One board may blotch badly, and the next sequential board from a flitch didn't blotch at all.
Now that I think about it, though, I've never had this happen with quartersawn or riftsawn cherry. It's possible this is due to the grain orientation (less chance of the grain diving into or coming out of the face at a steep angle and allowing a big differential adsorption fo the oil), but I suppose it's also possible that the mill operators don't quartersaw or riftsaw cherry with wild grain or a lot of knots.
Perhaps that's the case with cherry flooring (is it primarily quartersawn?)?
Perhaps that's the case with cherry flooring (is it primarily quartersawn?)? I don't recall, but I'll be over there next week.
I'll let you know.
Have you found much difference between glue sizing and a shellac washcoat? I always seem to use Shellac as the washcoat. This helps to reduce the blotching, but I still have problems with absorption of the gel stain. I cannot seem to get the knack of glazing areas only either. Most of the stock I have been working with is flatsawn because quartersawn cherry is soo darn expensive in my neck of the woods.
Cherry flooring is not normally quartersawn, but you can find it. Some manufacturers buy #2 and #3 stock to keep costs down.
Brad
This is my perception based on a very limited number of samples (less than 20 pieces of furniture):
Glue size seemes more effective than one coat of 1-1.5 lb cut shellac in getting a complete seal on the wood, both early wood and late wood. That's not always desirable, because it limits the amount of stain or dye that the surface will take up.
When I use just one wash coat of shellac, the early wood will still absorb a good bit of a pigment stain. It seems to take 2 coats with a bit of light sanding to get the early and late wood to take a color uniformly.
It's possible that this is a mistaken perception on my part, and the difference between the glue size and the shellac is that since the glue size is water-based, and the glue permanently polymerizes, the top coat of an oil-based or alcohol-based stain/dye doesn't dissolve any of the glue, but will dissolve some of the shellac. Perhaps the extra coat of shellac simply results in a thicker coat that doesn't dissolve enough to give the stain/dye access to the wood underneath.
The trick really seems to be knowing when you have the washcoat right. I have noticed the difference between the various woods, but never tried applying additional coats to selective areas or heaven forbid grab the sandpaper yet again. I get so perturbed when I have spent all the time building and sanding only to find drastic stain differences (or what I view as drastic). I'm to the point where I think I need to start spraying, but I suppose that will not fix it either.
Thks.
"Good tip on the nailing. I have a 15G. finnish nailer and wasn't looking forward to color matching the filler."I didn't know that Finnish manufacturers made nailers, but 15ga? Don't you have anything bigger, like a framing gun maybe? :) I use 15ga only for door jambs and maybe 4/4 stock.dkellernc offered a good suggestion about using a 23ga pin nailer. If you don't have one, this project could be a good excuse to buy a cool new toy. Cadex and Grex offer models that shoot up to 1 3/8" pins IIRC; my older Cadex shoots 1/2" to 1 3/16" pins and leaves an almost invisible hole.
BruceT
I know, I know....
15G is huge but door jambs are first on the list.
New tools come from work related projects.
The "Honey DO" list has to make do.
First let me say that we have pine frame windows surrounded by cherry trim on the first floor of our house and I love the look. Once the windows are trimmed out you don't see that much of the pine and the cherry trim is beautiful (but expensive as another poster noted.) When originally installed, the finishers managed to get a pretty close match between the color of the pine and the cherry. Both were stained with an oil-based pigment stain to what I would probably call a medium cherry. I assume they sealed the cherry first with some sort of wash coat as I have added some cherry crown molding to cabinets of the same color as the trim and had to seal it first to get a good match (and no blotching) with the same stain.
But, as dkellnernc points out, the cherry will continue to darken over time and, in my case, the pine did not change much. Now, six years later, the cherry is a couple shades darker than the pine. Again, I don't mind it but it is clearly not the match it once was. I also doubt they could have stained the pine much darker without muddying it up.
I would also recommend you fill any nail holes with putty on the darker side of the current color of the cherry. That is the one thing that does drive me crazy - the nail holes were invisible before but now they stand out as a bunch of randomly placed light spots.
Not sure if that helps you much but I thought I would offer up my experience with a similar situation.
Chris
We have pine windows and alder (poor man's cherry) trim. I watched the painters pretty carefully during construction to see how they matched the pine to alder.
They put a coat of some commercial wood conditioner on the alder to prevent blotching and then stained the pine and alder together with the same stain. Worked great. Perfect match.
When I did some built in cabinets, I got the formula for the stain from the local paint shop (they keep records of all the houses they provide paint for). I used a wash coat of shellac instead of whatever conditioner the painters used, and got a perfect match with the rest of the alder in the house.
I seriously doubt you will ever be able to stain just the pine and get a decent match. But if you stain the pine to something close to the cherry, and then put the same stain on the cherry (over a shellac wash coat on the cherry) you will get an almost perfect match.
Be warned that no matter how perfectly the match, you will always be able to tell the pine from the cherry because the fast growing pine grain is way wider than the narrow, slow growing cherry. But you do have to get real close to see the difference.
Chris
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