I’m going to be building some bookcases using birch panels for the boxes and maple for the face frame. What is the recommended approach to creating an even stain? I’ve stained this stuff in the past and it ended up with blotches.
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Chief of all sinners.
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Replies
What kind of color do you wish to achieve? In particular how dark?
Minwax Sedona Red 222, It's on the darker side of stains.Chief of all sinners.
You won't achieve the colors on the color chips with the Minwax stain on birch/maple--not even close. Your best route it to get there in a couple of steps. Step one is to use a water soluble powdered dye stain to establish the basic color, shooting for a bit on the light side to reduce blotching. Dye will blotch less than the Minwax combination oil based dye plus pigment, but the darker you go the more blotch you will have.
You will have to make some tests on the same wood to adjust the strength you mix the dye. Dye is best applied by hand quite liberally so the wood is essentially saturated. I usually use a sponge. Start from the bottom and work up so any drips or runs are over areas already wet with dye. Wipe excess with the same sponge just wrung out a bit.
Then, after the dye is dry, seal the dye with dewaxed shellac. A coat of roughly 1 lb. cut will work. (If you use Zinsser Seal Coat mix about 3 parts shellac with 2 parts denatured alcohol to get 1 lb. cut.)
Then, use a darker gel stain to add depth and to slightly darken the color to your desired shade. Over the sealed surface it won't blotch.
After the gel stain has dried you can apply the top coat of your choice. A oil based varnish would work well. Lots of people prefer wipe on consistency for ease of working.
A sanding sealer minimizes blotchiness in birch and maple. It should be applied BEFORE the stain to make the grain accept the stain evenly.
http://www.josephfusco.org/Articles/Blotch_Stain/Blotch_Stain.html
I want to emphasize that you can get good results with other materials, but if you are working with STAINS, then the washcoat is effective.
A wash coat can reduce blotches, but on hard woods such as birch and maple it pretty much prevents getting darker than a fairly light tone. That's why a dye before sealing helps get deeper colors.
Steve, in addition to your post above, doesn't a shellac washcoat work just as well as pre-mixed, specially marketed wood conditioners that are sold to minimize blotching??forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I agree that spraying stain is a great well to get even results. If spray equipment extends to being able to handle flamable or toxic materials I'd also seriously think about using NGR stains or other fast drying sustems.
It's generally true that shellac makes a good wash coat. Also note that "sanding sealer" would come well down on my list of products to use to prevent blotching. By sanding sealer I mean the stearated kind not Zinsser Seal Coat which isn't really a sanding sealer in the usual sense of the word, it's just dewaxed shellac, with a odd ball marketing scheme.
Apropo to nothing, if I were the dictator at Zinsser, a light blonde dewaxed (not bleached) and a dark (now amber) dewaxed would be the premier products, with Clear being the specialty shellac where only the lightest color will do. I'd market them all at 4 lb. cut to increase shelf life even further, reduce shipping costs, and enable me to sell my own label "special" denatured alcohol to be shelved together with the shellac. Whether I would want to share the Bullseye logo with the pigmented primer type products would be an issue for marketing research to identify. I'd guess that it dilutes the shellac brand without providing a overall recognition boost.
Edited 7/14/2009 10:21 pm ET by SteveSchoene
So when are you going to apply for the job?
Maybe send a copy of this post to them folks and maybe they would get the hint!!!!
Thank you for your suggestion. I did an experiment similar to the one described in your link. One with thinned shellac, one with pre-stain conditioner, and one without anything. I found the thinned shellac superior.I'm thinking about using shellac instead of polyurethane for the final finish(All I've used in the past is poly). Are there any warnings against this? I know there are some finishes that leave stains if water stays on it for a period of time. Is this a problem with shellac?
Chief of all sinners.
Darker colors will require a dye stain as others have noted. The only way to get true blotch free results with a water-based dye stain is to layer on light spray coats until you get the depth of color desired.
For a medium color, I rag on a 3/4 pound cut of dark shellac for a light base color. Then sand with 320 grit. Then I rag apply Belen's van dyke brown glaze. Allow to dry overnight then spray apply shellac or sanding sealer. Follow up with topcoats of choice. The only draw back to this technique is that the sealer coat over the glaze must be sprayed, a brushed or rag applied sealer will lift the glaze. I use this finish all the time on maple with great results, a nice mediul brown color. Various glaze colors or gel stains can be used as the glaze to vary the color to suit.
Chief,
You have heard from Steve Schoen. He is the best. Pay attention to him if you want to proceed in the direction you were headed.
My advice is just the opposite. Learn to think of what you used to think of as "blotching" as a FEATURE, not a FLAW. Learn not to play with God's designs in the grain of wood. Learn not to use stains at all. The wood is more beautiful with only a finish on it.
If you can't convince yourself that unstained wood is beautiful, then learn to love blotching, and not to dislike it. It is beautiful. It is part of nature. If you don't like the "imperfections" of nature, you could just use paint, and be done with it. Then those pesky blotches will be hidden forever.
It is easy to answer messages on Knots with "Helpful Hints". THey are nice but boring. I like to be challenged. I realize that many people do not like to be challenged to think of alternatives. If you are one of them, then just ignore my message altogether. If you are someone who has an open mind, then think about my suggestion for a brief second. I have almost stopped using stains, after three decades of keeping Minax alive. Two decades ago, I laughed at the suggestion I am now making to you. Times change. I have too.
Whatever you decide, I wish you luck and fun.
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
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