sanding sealer before staining birch.
Guild
appling the stain? I am building a birch doll house for my daughter and a
friend told me that doing it this way, the stain sets more evenly. I have
been woodworking for quite awhile and have never heard of this. Have any of
you people ever tried this? I am getting ready to put the stain on this
weekend.
thanks for any comments and I hope you and yours have a merry Christmas.
Brian
Gerry Glauser
so with water based than oil stains. There are preconditioners that are
used to even out the stain penetration and reduce the blotching, and you
would need one for the type of stain that you're using. Better yet is to use
a gel stain, which often needs no preconditioner or sealer. Sanding sealer
would have a similar effect, but would further reduce the stain penetration
and tend to give you an even lighter finish. Too much of this, and the wood
is sealed completely. There are several other methods, but they give varying
results and may take more practice.
Since birch varies quite a bit, make sure you try a test piece of scrap
first. Many times there will still be considerable variation no matter what
you do. However, the doll house is probably small enough that you'll be
okay.
--Gerry Glauser
Henry &/or Yvonne Douglas
stain first, wipe off, then apply the coloured stain, and you won't have
the blotchies. I use water based, oil based and gel stains all the time
and each time I apply natural first, then the colour. So if you are
using say water-based stain, use water-based natural first, then the
colour, or gel stain, use natural first, then the colour.
Hope this helps.
Henry
Bmp arch
good luck.
brian
Dave Nash
Guild wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of appling sanding sealer before
> appling the stain? I am building a birch doll house for my daughter and a
> friend told me that doing it this way, the stain sets more evenly. I have
> been woodworking for quite awhile and have never heard of this. Have any of
> you people ever tried this? I am getting ready to put the stain on this
> weekend.
>
> thanks for any comments and I hope you and yours have a merry Christmas.
>
> Brian
I read the same thing somewhere, so I went and bought a quart and tried it. The stain wouldn't sink
in like I wanted. It spread evenly, but looked like colored water. That was 6 years ago and I never
used it again. You can have the sealer. I like the natural finish even if there are imperfections,
which happen very very rarely.
Dave Nash
James & Jill Pierce
I went that route on a small drop leaf table and it worked fine. But don't
expect poly to stick to the sealer if that's what you want to finish it up.
Mine is peeling off, and I'll have to find something that will stick. I
wasn't aware of that little fact when I put the sealer on.
Dave Nash wrote in message <367B6252...@frontiernet.net>...
Shafner
>
> From Jim:
> I went that route on a small drop leaf table and it worked fine. But don't
> expect poly to stick to the sealer if that's what you want to finish it up.
> Mine is peeling off, and I'll have to find something that will stick. I
> wasn't aware of that little fact when I put the sealer on.
You should have used your finish as a sealer. You do this by reducing it 50%
to 65%. Then this thinned finish is used as your firat coat. You can do this
with any finish.
But what you really want to do instead is reduce it 75% to 85% to make a
washcoat (a/k/a a spitcoat). This is what you do first to control blotchy woods.
Either way, you do not need a sanding sealer with polyurethane.
As for Mr. Nash (see below), of course it is not going to sink in as much as
if there were no sealer or washcoat. These first coats size the wood. stopping
the pores from accepting the stain. It is this process that is used
effectively to control the penetration of the stain. The unequal absorption of
the stain by the wood (the wood has varying degrees of density) is what causes
the blotchy appearance. Some areas end up with more colorant than other areas.
What you needed to do was to thin your washcoat much more than you did so you
would not have stopped up the wood pores (sizing) as much as you did. This
requires sample boards so that you know what proportions of mixing that you
will use on your project.
On top of your washed out color, you could have toned or glazed, then
topcoated. This would have given you a professional look.
Finishing does not have to be a two-step process of staining and topcoating.
It is as important and involved as the woodworking itself, if you really want
to have control over the process and get predictable results.
Washcoating is my preferred method of controlling blotching. Next is spraying
an almost dried/cured coat of dye-based color (since it is almost dry by the
time the material hits the wood, it penetrates very little into the wood, and
that eliminates the blotching). Then I would opt for a good gel stain like
Wood-Kote (gel stains stop penetrating when you stop manipulating them, like
ketchup -- Heinz -- on bread). My least favorite method is the wood
conditioner because it is the most unpredictable of the other methods that I
mentioned (you have no way of knowing how and where the different densities
are in the wood, even though you apply the stuff all over).
> Dave Nash wrote in message <367B6252...@frontiernet.net>...
> >
> >
> >Guild wrote:
> >
> >> I was wondering if anyone has ever heard of appling sanding sealer before
> >> appling the stain? I am building a birch doll house for my daughter and a
> >> friend told me that doing it this way, the stain sets more evenly. I have
> >> been woodworking for quite awhile and have never heard of this. Have any
> >> of you people ever tried this? I am getting ready to put the stain on this
> >> weekend.
> >>
> >> thanks for any comments and I hope you and yours have a merry Christmas.
> >>
> >> Brian
> >
> >I read the same thing somewhere, so I went and bought a quart and tried it.
> >The stain wouldn't sinkin like I wanted. It spread evenly, but looked like
> >colored water. That was 6 years ago and I never used it again. You can have
> >the sealer. I like the natural finish even if there are imperfections, which
> >happen very very rarely.
> >
> >Dave Nash
--
Daniel Shafner
shafner at earthlink dot net
/ `-' ) ,,,
| IU U||||||||[:::]
\_.-.( '''
NOSPAMBOB
Please elucidate, what are the differences between the two and what are the
different ramifications?
In article <19981218151305...@ng93.aol.com>, bmp...@aol.com (Bmp
arch) writes:
>
>hi Brian, use wood conditioner, not sealer with sealer your taking a risk.
rbowles96ATaolDOTcom for real E-mail
Shafner
>
> Please elucidate, what are the differences between the two and what are the
> different ramifications?
>
>
> >
> >hi Brian, use wood conditioner, not sealer with sealer your taking a risk.
>
> rbowles96ATaolDOTcom for real E-mail
A sanding sealer works to control blotching because it stops up (sizes) the
pores of the wood. That way, the penetration of the stain into the wood,
greatly reduced by the sealer (it should be thinned so that it is a washcoat
which allows more penetration by the stain, not a sealer which sizes the wood
too much). is even and consistent. It is the uneven penetration by the stain
into the wood (the wood has diffeent densities) that causes blotching.
But sanding sealers cause poor adhesion of a polyurethane film. Polyurethane
has enough resins in it that it can be used a self-sealing system. It should
be used that way. The resins in the liquid are the percent of solids that
remain to form a continuous film after all the other ingrediants have
evaporated away.
A wood conditioner is an oily substance that you flood the wood with prior to
using an oil-based stain. The theory is that it will be present in the denser
areas of the wood and not so present in the not-so-dense areas of the wood,
providing you with a uniform base to apply your stain. Once again, the
controlled penetration of the stain gives you a less blotchy appearance.
Judith Mattart
you can get a really nice interesting result with shadows instead of
blotches. Otherwise, birch is best finished without stain...as is poplar.
Just the varnish, man, just the varnish.
Judy Mattart Yuma AZ
Rojo2G
Alder can take a stain unevenly and unexpectedly. The stainsealer dries very
quickly and can be stained the same day. It also goes a long way. Good luck