Hello Folks,

I built three living room tables out of red oak and walnut. The final coat of finish will be sprayed waterborne lacquer. However, to give the wood a warmer appearance I applied a coat of Minwax “Natural” oil stain (number 209), which does not contain any pigments as far as I can tell. After applying the “stain” I noticed tearout in a few places in the three tops (black walnut) so I proceeded to fix that with a cabinet scraper followed by 180 grit sandpaper. I reapplied the stain to the affected area but now I get a somewhat different sheen between the repaired areas and their surrounding. The repaired areas seemed to not get saturated with the stain, which leaves them a little more bland. I re-applied a second coat and the problem persists.

Perhaps this sheen problem will disappear when I apply the shellac seal coat + lacquer final coats but I’d like to get a second opinion before I do that. The other alternative I see is to re-sand everything, which would not be such a big deal.

Thanks.