I am finishing a table and am using the following steps:
1. Stain wood
2. Apply sealer
3. Sand lightly and apply pore filler
4. Sand away excess filler
5. restain with a gel stain
6. Top coat
My question is when to apply the gel stain. On my practice samples, when I restain AFTER applying the pore filler, the gel stain does not seem to darken the wood at all. I am wondering if the pore filler seals the wood and is preventing the gel stain from getting into the wood.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks
Cheers,
Velo
Replies
Yes, the pore filler is an pretty effective sealer, and you have also used a seperate sealing step before the pore filler, so that any stain, especially gel stain is going to act as a glaze not a stain. Thus you need to revise your schedule.
1. Stain wood.
2 Seal stain--do not use "sanding sealer". Shellac works well or you can use your top coat substantially thinned. The purpose of this sealer is to reduce the darkening of the background shade when tinted pore filler is used.
3. Apply tinted pore filler. If pigment is added to the pore filler--often a hair darker than the initial base stain--it will complete any additional darkening so there would be no need to "restain" unless you have cut through when removing excess pore filler. If that's the reason for restaining, you want the stain to only "take" at the cut through spot. If you are using oil-based pore filler then you should require very little sanding if any. Waterbased pore filler dries so fast that you almost certainly have to sand off a substantial amount.
4. Let pore filler cure quite well. I give a week for oil based, in reasonably warm temps.
5. Apply top coat of choice, depending on the look you are aiming at, and the service requirements.
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