Is this possible? (rainbow stain colors & panel glue up)

[Josh Reet]

Okay, stay with me here because I'm not sure this will make a lot of sense.

My brother and his wife are very "green" type folks. They love the idea of anything made from reclaimed materials. They also just had a son 6 months back and when I was visiting last month I noticed that they had this cruddy looking plywood-screwed-together bookshelf in his nursery. So I got to thinking...

My local Re-Store has a bunch of chunks of gym floor (maple?) from a local middle school. A fellow I know has had a lot of success taking busting them apart, removing the "gym" finish, and re assembling them into tables or whatnot.

So I'm thinking about using the wood to make a bookshelf for them. I measured while I was there and the the bookshelf would be 30x12x40 or so.

Here are my questions:

1. I was thinking that, since this is going in a kids room, it might be cool to stain each board a different color, in a rainbow pattern perhaps. Is there any way to do this prior to a panel glue up? If not, what are the chances of successfully staining that rainbow on the already glued up boards? I've never tried anything like that.

2. Like most flooring, the boards are tongue and glue. given that the most important thing is to be able to say "this is reclaimed lumber" rather than achieve perfection, should I leave the t&g on there for easy assembly, or cut it off for tighter seams?

3. Am I an idiot for thinking about this? The rainbow aspect really seems neat to me, but I suppose I could just go for a standard panel glue up and stain if I'm tilting at windmills.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

I'd go with a dye instead of using stain and color them on edge before glueup.

http://www.kingdomrestorations.com/_images//wooddyepaintsamples.jpg

There's a nice selection of dyes and depending on the wood can give a deep effect once the seal coat is down.

[Barry Vabeach]

Josh, if you stain the separate planks, then glue them back together, I think you will have a hard time keeping them precisely level - even if you keep the tongue and groove. Any sanding after it is glued up will eat into the stain. You might want to try gluing up a set (3 -4 ) boards, stain them one color, then another set and so one - it will give you less seams to deal with. Another option is to glue up the boards, sand smooth, then use an autobody tape to mask off diffierent sections when applying different stains or dyes ) If you do that, make sure the clear finish doesn't redissolve the stain / dye.

[Josh Reet]

I'd go with a dye instead of using stain and color them on edge before glueup.

There's a nice selection of dyes and depending on the wood can give a deep effect once the seal coat is down.


That's a good suggestion. Though I've never tried dye. I'll have to get some and mess around before I commit to using it on something like this.

Does it seem likely I could dye then glue then final finish?

[Josh Reet]

Josh, if you stain the separate planks, then glue them back together, I think you will have a hard time keeping them precisely level - even if you keep the tongue and groove. Any sanding after it is glued up will eat into the stain. You might want to try gluing up a set (3 -4 ) boards, stain them one color, then another set and so one - it will give you less seams to deal with. Another option is to glue up the boards, sand smooth, then use an autobody tape to mask off diffierent sections when applying different stains or dyes ) If you do that, make sure the clear finish doesn't redissolve the stain / dye.

That is exactly what I was thinking my problem would be. However, it is mitigated somewhat by the fact that precision is not particularly important in this instance (other than to myself). I could probably live with a little "less than perfectly flat".

The problem with the "glue a few at a time of one color" is that each of the boards would need to be one color likely due to the width of the boards and the overall size of the project. I don't think (without using fewer colors or narrower boards) that I could do multiple boards one color.

I had thought about the autobody or "sealing" type tape. And that might be worth giving a try. I've never used it for anything but masking interior housepaint though. Perhaps someone will chime in if they have used it for stain.