TopCoat Toning Experiment

The good folks at Woodcraft told me about toning! So playing Mad Scientist I mixed up a batch of General Finishes Enduro Clear Poly and some water based Brown Stain. i did a 3:1 ratio. 3 parts poly, 1 part Water based Stain. I set my fuji q5 up and dialed in the fan pattern.( i think its correct) I used an old hollow core door that was properly prepped and primed with BIN. Upon spraying, the first swipe looked great... then the 50% overlap gave me a dreaded tiger stripe. What am i doing wrong? Should I have used a dye stain instead of pigmented stain?

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I only use dye in a clear finish...pigments get to be really troublesome. I actually made a mistake with that and had to sand this back after I attempted to spray the edges of the burst far darker. I used some (chemically compatible) black finish to get the dark I wanted in the clear and oh, my...it really "sucked". Up until I did that nasty, this was headed in exactly the direction I wanted.

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I think that toners are probably best used to make small adjustments to a piece that's already basically the right color, but needs to be tweaked warmer or cooler, redder or greener. I too have only used dyes (eg Transtint) in a toner or the spray lacquer toners that Mohawk sells. I'd use a dye or combination of dyes to get the basic tone you want, shellac to keep it in place, a pigment stain mostly rubbed off to highlight grain if you like, clear finish, then toner for final adjustments.

Getting even color with a heavily colored clear finish is well beyond my spray or brush skills.

When toning you should be using be a very light touch. Very minor change with the toner, wide fan and a light coat. Usually my tone coats are thinned 50% ie: 2 parts finish to 1 part thinner. A box coat is best. You have to watch out for mottling which is splotchiness in the smoothness of the toner.

I'm currently doing a dozen cabinets for a closet system that has a stain with a tone coat. I put the stain on and make sure it's lighter than the final color and then bring the color the rest of the way with the toner.

Thanks guys! I think toning is a little out of my league at the moment., i will sand this piece down and retry again when my wife gives me permission to play in the workshop again! :-) So what is the easiest way to darken a light finish on several kitchen cabinets (besides painting)?- lets say going from a light oak stain to a darker color like dark brown/Walnut?

Toning. LOL

But it's true. The other option is to sand it down and restain. If you only put a bit of dye in the finish and sneak up on the color you eliminate most chances for striping. After the tone coat you need to apply at least one final finish coat which is thinned properly for normal finishing.

This is the color I'm working on now. You can see the final color in the field, the raw color in the dado and the toned color on the rabbet. The tone doesn't look as good in the pic as it does with your eye, but you can see that there isn't a huge difference. This is a box coat with a 50% overlap and then a quick coat with the grain with no overlap, so 3 passes.

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Originally Posted by David Ruhland

Thanks guys! I think toning is a little out of my league at the moment., i will sand this piece down and retry again when my wife gives me permission to play in the workshop again! :-) So what is the easiest way to darken a light finish on several kitchen cabinets (besides painting)?- lets say going from a light oak stain to a darker color like dark brown/Walnut?

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Gel stain may be an option.

Why did you prime it with BIN? A sealed, white surface is going to be a lot harder to spray with a toner than raw wood. I've done a fair amount of toner work to match existing colors. I normally start with a base dye in water or DNA, followed by a wiping stain, followed by a sealer, then a toner, then the topcoat. There are other options, but this one has worked well for me in many situations.

Spraying toner takes a better hand than spraying clear topcoat alone, as you found out. It's best to spray at least two half strength coats, using a wide-open fan, and as low a pressure as possible that still gives good atomization. Above all, avoid spraying too heavily. Pooling and worse yet runs are tough to deal with.

These white ash upper cabinets and maple moldings were sprayed with two coats of a cocktail of Transtint dye in Sealcoat shellac, overlapping each pass about 50%, and then Clear Poly topcoat.

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John,

I primed with Bin cause my first test of scuffing up the previous finish didn't lay so well and i really didn't have a clue why... must need primer I thought.

Second this. I've never had luck with toning but gel stains have worked really well for me in the past.

David, in looking back at your original photos, the thought that came to mind was that perhaps you were laying the tinted finish on too heavy (and too dark) and the resultant overlaps happened. You need a really fine atomization and very light coats to "sneak" up on the tone you want to achieve and have to spray it a bit different than when you are simply clear coating. The toning is "cumulative"...each layer makes it slightly darker and those overlaps are an extreme example of that.

Thank you... i will get back to practicing soon!