Stain is a pain!

[Donkbaca]

Just wanted to throw that out there.  Getting a good stain is tough I have discovered a few things:

1) Stain hides nothing, if anything, it highlights imperfections.  Next time I stain, I will make sure the surface I want to stain is as blemish free as possible.


2) Its much easier to stain things laying horizontally then vertical.  Its not that the stain runs, but that its easier to lay down nice even strokes on a horizontal surface for me.

3) It will never be even.  If you look at most hand finished pieces, the wood is not a uniform color throughout, there are light spots and dark spots.  The problem is, most finished wood I see is factory finished, where the wood is processed and dyed so that its a uniform tint throughout the whole piece.  When I stain, the color variations are something that, for whatever reason, I try to even out, so I spend hours trying to fix something that is not really fixable.  Next project I do, I won't obsess about the evenness as much in terms of color variation, and focus more on even application.

Just wanted to rant a bit.  Putting the last coats of poly on my project tonight, hopefully ready to wire tomorrow.

[javeryh]

1.  Everything looks WAY better with a few coats of poly.  I can't stress this enough.  A blemish-free surface is a must though.

2.  Agreed.  The problem is gluing together pieces you have already stained if you are going to keep everything horizontal.  The slightest bit of glue will not take the poly and it will mess things up - you can't really sand it off either because that will mess up your stain.

3.  Make sure you use wood conditioner first!  Getting an even stain isn't that difficult if you properly treat the wood before staining.  If you skip this step then getting an even finish is really really really tough (damn near impossible, IMO).

[Donkbaca]

Yeah, the poly does make it look better.  I am getting ready to sand and do my final coats tonight.  I am not very good at the "light sanding with a fine grit"  I have found that using steel wool is a horrible idea, bits of steel wool get everywhere.  I am using a 320 grit sanding block for tonight to get out some dust nibs and other rough spots, I think that should work ok.

Yeah, this is a huge point. wood putty and wood glue should be avoided at all costs, even the stainable varieites don't take up stain like the rest of the wood, learned this the hard way.  You can KIND of hide it with a careful application of gel stain, but its a lot of trouble.  Next time I do this I am just going to tip the cab on its side when I stain it and do one side at a time, instead of trying to do all the sides vertically.  It will quadruple the finishing time, but the results will be better.

I applied prestain conditioner, but the thing is, stained wood is never uniform in color, you will get variations of light and dark, and really, that is part of what makes stained wood so attractive, the variations of the natural wood.  The problem is that a lot of the commercial wood products are dyed, where its all one uniform color against the grain.  Its that type of finish that is just about impossible to achieve with a simple brush/rag and stain...

[emb]

What kind of wood are you staining? I hear pine and birch can be a royal pain. I ended up buying oak because I "heard" it is a little easier to stain. We'll see how that goes when I get to that stage.

[Donkbaca]

Birch is what I am using.  But my experience can pretty much apply to all wood types.  Be patient, and don't expect the color to be uniform, there will be light and dark spots.  Just look around your office or house at furniture made with real wood that is hand finished, or look at real wood cabinets, there are light and dark areas in the wood.  I am not talking about splotchiness, I am talking about color variations. 

[DNA Dan]

Stain is a pain... Spoken like a true realist.

No matter what you do different grain angles = different stain uptake. Even just shooting it with poly or lacquer bare produces the same result.

[Donkbaca]

Another thing for you first timers out there; patience.  I am learning that the finishing is the hardest process, if you rush it, it looks like ass.  Tough too, because you can see the cab, its beggint you to put the guts in and play, but you have to put the finish on, and that is VERY time consuming, you figure three coats of stain takes at least 2 days to do right, then poly is another day or two, that is a looooong time to wait!

[Woodshop Flunky]

Finishing with stain is an art.  There are so many factors that go into getting a good finish.  The Minwax commercials make me laugh.

I use a combination of dyes and gel stains.  But it seems like I never repeat the same process twice!

In my experiences, it starts with the wood selection.  Some wood just isn't worth staining (IMHO).  Starting with a nice piece of wood, with good grain or figure, go a long way toward a better finish.

[Woodshop Flunky]

My previous post is not to suggest that I know anything about staining except that I know it is a pain!

[Donkbaca]

Yeah, this is my first big project, just wanted to share some perspective...

[drventure]

Yeah, Most of the softwoods (pine, birch, aspen, etc) can be very tricky to stain. Using a good conditioner, watching your glue squeeze out, and keeping surfaces clean are pretty important there.

Hardwoods tend to be a lot easier.

Also, i've found that ragging stain is much easier and can give more consistent results than brushing. Basically, you just soak a rag partially in stain, and rub it in, instead of painting it on with a brush and wiping it off. That technique also works with vertical surfaces (did 3 large bookcases like that with them standing up, no problems at all).

and +1 on the poly. I've used a number of different kinds but for general furniture use, the MinWax wipe-on poly (same technique, rag it on, wipe and buff off), works great. 2-3 coats and you're gold.

[Nephasth]

I love staining wood! I love a rich dark stain, and I love satin poly! What I don't love is the prep work (sanding). The stain really brings out the grain and makes it almost hypnotic, I could stare at that ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- for hours. Stained wood is truly beautiful.

My first stain job.

[Woodshop Flunky]

+1 on the Minwax wipe-on poly.  I LOVE this stuff.  Easy to use, and I've never had a problem with it.

[nox771]

Stain isn't too bad if you go with an oil-based product.  I've only had trouble blending color on very large pieces (like bookcases), usually because of starting at one end, going across the piece, and spending too much time at the other end.  But with oil-based I can usually work it out.  And as others mentioned, using the conditioner beforehand helps (put another way, I don't think I've ever had a finished piece that I said, damn I wish I wouldn't have used that wood conditioner on it..).  Even with wood conditioner I have had uneven absorbtion on pieces made from a mix of woods such as solid wood and plywood (ply veneer has a very different absorbtion rate than solid wood).

Last thing I should mention is IMO, stay away from any kind of water based (acrylic) stain.  Actually I wouldn't recommend using any kind of water-based finish (acrylic stain/polyurethane, interior latex, polycrylic, etc) on any surface that comes in contact with anything.  Main reason being that water-based finishes always have 'blocking' problems, meaning that it will forever retain some level of tackyness (if you are unfamiliar with this effect see here: http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/infpai/inflatexblocking.html).

As far as stain, water based stains suck for numerous reasons - 1) it absorbs into the wood fibers causing them to swell and raise up, giving you a rough surface (and no amount of wet sanding - in the woodworking sense, not the car finish sense, is going to fix it), 2) it dries so freaking fast that you'll start at one edge of a piece, and by the time you work to the other side it will be dry on the side you started on, 3) when it does dry you get nasty edge effects, due to the stain pigment concentrating on the edge, that are near impossible to remove or blend.  Perhaps someone out there has techniques for working with it right, but IMO oil-based is much much easier to work with.

[Donkbaca]

Yeah, oil based is pretty much what everyone uses.

got a 320 grit sanding block, went over the rough spots and sanded things smooth, wiped on another layer of poly, that makes it three so far.  Man the poly really does make everything look better, it gives everything that hardened finished look.  I amy be done, not sure, gonna check things out tonight and might do one final sand/poly .

A thing I learned is that when applying the wet stain, make sure its even without any brush/rag marks, don't worry about color depth, the stain looks different when it gets a chance to dry, and different still when the poly is applied.

I am using a gel stain, if you want to get a dark finish on light wood, go gel stain, its easier to build a finish with it.

Stay away from poly/stain all in one solutions, they don't seem to penetrate the wood well.

[emb]

Do you have any pics on how everything turned out?

[Donkbaca]

On my build thread, search xbox 360 goodness

[emb]

I 't know if it is because of the pictures or not, but I'd say it looks pretty sharp

[Donkbaca]

Thanks!  but it is a pain, and I could have done better.  Patience, lots of coats, and light sanding are the key I have learned...