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Posted: 8/31/2014 10:07:03 PM EDT
I just finished up a project and stained it. It was pine so I made sure to put on a coat of wood conditioner before applying the stain. It still came out blotchy. 
Any ideas to keep this from happening again to me next time? |
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Posted: 8/31/2014 11:43:03 PM EDT
[#1]
Use dilute aniline dies instead of pigmented stains. Behlens Bros and others make them. You can dilute them to any strength you feel comfortable working with. Multiple coats build color. If you get a light spot, pad on a few more coats over that area to even out the color.
To some extent , you can even remove color. Use the plain solvent on a rag to soak dye back out of the wood. One really good thing, it dries really fast. If you want to slow it down, they sell a "retardant" to keep the dye liquid for spreading and blending. You can make custom colors by simple mixing of liquid dyes in a separate bottle. |
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Posted: 9/1/2014 8:27:11 AM EDT
[#2]
Start using real wood
I only use stain if a customer insists on it. |
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Posted: 9/1/2014 9:18:53 AM EDT
[#3]
If you didn't sand all of it, relatively close to when you conditioned it, that is a good place to start. Then use A quality conditioner, and you won't find that at the orange or blue stores! And finally, as Trollslayer stated, a quality stain in light coats, with proper drying time and light sanding between coats.
Pine sucks for staining anything but a clear coat. As Covertness said, if you are thinking of staining something, drop a few pennies more and get real wood. It will look nicer and not look so cheap. It will also last longer as pine is very soft and damages easy. |
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Posted: 9/1/2014 1:28:49 PM EDT
[#4]
Now, wait a minute.
Pine is a beautiful wood. Yes, it is soft but it has its place in the world. It comes in many different species from sugar pine to southern yellow pine, each having appropriate uses. The thing is, it is not the easiest to use, either to work or, as our OP has found, to finish. As a counter-point, I don't care for the often strong grain pattern found in many hard woods, especially when those patterns are not well matched, such as when transitioning across the joinery. Many hardwoods are dense and the project ends up being excessively heavy. Well, to be honest, I really like them all, including pine. |
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Posted: 9/1/2014 1:39:20 PM EDT
[#5]
OP - you need a different kind of stain for pine as was earlier mentioned.
Those 'conditioners' might diminish the blotching, but they are not going to get rid of it completely. Think about it, you are putting it on the pine over the good and bad areas. From what I have read and heard about the conditioners is to get the maximum effect from then you would need multiple applications before putting down the stain. Pine has its place and is good to work with to gain experience because it is so cheap and easy to machine. I stopped using it on larger products because of quality inconsistencies in what I was seeing for sale. I do a lot with Oak and Maple now ..... some Mahogany but I save my mahogany stock for special projects. Cherry is good to, it develops a patina over time with exposure to light. Even if you seal Cherry with a clear coat, it will darken over time with exposure to daylight. |
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Posted: 9/1/2014 1:41:14 PM EDT
[#6]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Start using real wood
I only use stain if a customer insists on it. Yeah, you're probably right. It wasn't for anything important so I went cheap and thought I would take a shot and see what happened. |
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Posted: 9/1/2014 6:12:07 PM EDT
[#7]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Pine has its place and is good to work with to gain experience because it is so cheap and easy to machine. I stopped using it on larger products because of quality inconsistencies in what I was seeing for sale. I do a lot with Oak and Maple now ..... some Mahogany but I save my mahogany stock for special projects. Cherry is good to, it develops a patina over time with exposure to light. Even if you seal Cherry with a clear coat, it will darken over time with exposure to daylight. Cherry is terrific - machines well, finishes well, looks great but not overpowering. I love maple but it is HARD. Still, I love it. I don't care for oak too much due to its grossly open grain. Ditto for walnut and ash. Both are excellent and the grain can be dealt with but I prefer cherry and maple. Poplar is hard enough, machines well and is relatively inexpensive out here. I just don't care for its natural greenish hue. These are my personal preferences, YMMV. |
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Posted: 9/1/2014 7:28:58 PM EDT
[#8]
Pictures?
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Posted: 9/1/2014 8:06:56 PM EDT
[#9]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Yeah, you're probably right. It wasn't for anything important so I went cheap and thought I would take a shot and see what happened. Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
Start using real wood
I only use stain if a customer insists on it. Yeah, you're probably right. It wasn't for anything important so I went cheap and thought I would take a shot and see what happened. I learned how to mill and join wood with pine. Just been so long and I've been fortunate to be able to work with a lot of domestic and foreign hard wood. Been spoiled I guess. Still despise using stain and charge a premium if somebody wants me to stain something. How I stained pine. Take a wash cloth and soak it in stain then wring it out. Rub it into the wood, wetting and wringing the wash cloth out as needed. Let dry overnight and repeat until you get the color you want. Might take 3-4 coats like this to equal flooding your work with stain and wiping off the excess. However you get great control over the color and it reduces botching Should have made this my first response. Apologies for knocking your choice of wood. Keep making sawdust friend. |
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Posted: 9/2/2014 3:03:40 PM EDT
[#10]
To stain pine, you need to apply it so that you don't need to wipe off any excess.
Use a brush and a good oil based stain that is the color you want. Dip the brush so only the tips of the bristles go in the stain, and then start brushing it onto the wood. Spread the stain so that it covers the wood and just fills the grain, but it will be spread out so thin that you don't leave a brush mark when you go over it. ( think dry brushing ) If you have too much stain in one spot, keep spreading until your brush is almost dry. Add slightly more stain in light spots, and brush away excess stain in dark spots. when you are done, just let it dry a day and finish as normal. Here is our under counter bar front which is cheap pine bead board from lowes, and pine 1x's on the corners. I finished it with a red oak stain, and then a coat of polyurethane , followed by black glaze ( paint brushed on and wiped off quickly) to match our cabinets. 
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Posted: 9/2/2014 3:34:33 PM EDT
[#11]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
To stain pine, you need to apply it so that you don't need to wipe off any excess. Use a brush and a good oil based stain that is the color you want. Dip the brush so only the tips of the bristles go in the stain, and then start brushing it onto the wood. Spread the stain so that it covers the wood and just fills the grain, but it will be spread out so thin that you don't leave a brush mark when you go over it. ( think dry brushing ) If you have too much stain in one spot, keep spreading until your brush is almost dry. Add slightly more stain in light spots, and brush away excess stain in dark spots. when you are done, just let it dry a day and finish as normal. Here is our under counter bar front which is cheap pine bead board from lowes, and pine 1x's on the corners. I finished it with a red oak stain, and then a coat of polyurethane , followed by black glaze ( paint brushed on and wiped off quickly) to match our cabinets. <a href="http://s1183.photobucket.com/user/adkinsmachine/media/DSCN7043.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x476/adkinsmachine/DSCN7043.jpg</a> Looks nice. Still, the "blotchiness" in your paneling is pretty typical for stained pine. It is caused by the changing grain directions. Those areas where the end grain begins to open up absorb and hold onto more pigment and are darker. I forgot to mention this, above. Aniline dyes are transparent, whereas, pigmented stains are opaque. The transparency allows the grain pattern to show thru in a way that (IMO) is superior to that achieved with pigments. |
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Posted: 9/4/2014 6:03:28 PM EDT
[#12]
The ultimate 'wood conditioner' is a coat of 1 pound shellac that is than lightly scuffed off for the most part.
It soaks into the grain and then you take off what sits on the surface. Water based aniline dye is then slowed down by the shellac that soaked in. For light wood use a lighter shellac. Make sure the shellac says 'dewaxed' on the label. Blonde or 'super blonde' dewaxed is often worth the slight extra cost. Mix the shellac from flakes using denatured alcohol. |
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Posted: 9/4/2014 9:34:11 PM EDT
[#13]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
The ultimate 'wood conditioner' is a coat of 1 pound shellac that is than lightly scuffed off for the most part. It soaks into the grain and then you take off what sits on the surface. Water based aniline dye is then slowed down by the shellac that soaked in. For light wood use a lighter shellac. Make sure the shellac says 'dewaxed' on the label. Blonde or 'super blonde' dewaxed is often worth the slight extra cost. Mix the shellac from flakes using denatured alcohol. ^^^ Link to Zinsser , it worked well on SYP |
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Posted: 9/5/2014 4:23:23 PM EDT
[#14]
In addition to the shellac washcoat as suggested by brickeyee, I have used oil based polyurethane thinned with paint thinner at a 4:1 ratio to achieve the same results.
Edit: 4 parts thinner 1 part poly |
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Posted: 9/5/2014 8:38:08 PM EDT
[#15]
I've never used this product, but it is specifically for non blotching staining.
http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/solar-luxngrstain-1.aspx |
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Posted: 9/5/2014 10:12:58 PM EDT
[#16]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
I've never used this product, but it is specifically for non blotching staining. http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/solar-luxngrstain-1.aspx That is the product I have been describing, an aniline dye. Behlens Solar Lux is a good product; it's what I use. There are other makers, too. |
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Posted: 9/6/2014 11:34:50 PM EDT
[#17]
How would Danish oil work with pine? |
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Posted: 9/7/2014 1:43:36 AM EDT
[#18]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
How would Danish oil work with pine? Watco and BLO are terrific on pine. You get that warm yellow color immediately. In most Watco on pine applications, I top coat furniture with clear, gloss Deft. Once properly coated with a Deft top coat, it can be sanded to any level of gloss you like. |
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