Finishing a new pine kitchen table

[Gary Hamor]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to this forum and also fairly new to the art and science of finishing. I have read a bunch of posts, and some come close to what I'm looking for, but I still have uncertainties about exactly what to use and how to do it. Maybe you can help me.

I just built my first major piece of furniture - a new kitchen table.

The frame and legs are made from beetle kill Lodgepole pine, harvested a few miles from where I live in Colorado. I wasn't sure of my woodworking skills, so I made the top out of 2x4s I purchased at HD. I milled them through the jointer, then the woodmaster to get them true and flat. I then put 6 biscuit joints along each edge of their 104" length and clamped them all together. For accent, I use a 1" piece of read oak (also from HD) down the long center of the table top, also biscuit joined to the pine on both sides.

My wife thinks the pine without a stain may be a little too pale for the kitchen decor - especially the table top which is a bit lighter than the beetle kill frame. On the other hand, I love the blue hues in the beetle kill and hate to cover than up with a brownish stain. However, we made a trip to WoodCraft this evening and she likes the General Finishes Nutmeg Oil Based Gel Stain, and I was reading elsewhere that I need to apply a pre-stain treatment to the pine to avoid blotching. So I picked up GF's Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner.

So my schedule will be
1 or two coats of the GF Pre-Stain (I'm testing as I write this)
1 or two coats of the GF Nutmeg stain

and now, I'm wondering about a good topcoat. Some things I've read say that several coats of the GF Gel Stain will give a good finish.

But I want a good durable finish, especially the tabletop. From what I can read here and elsewhere, Target Coating's EM2000wvx might work well.

I've also read some good things about GF's Gel Top Coat, as well as their Arm-R-Seal. Although I've read here that the Arm-R-Seal may have issues curing (although most of those threads were using it on top of BLO.) The fellow at WoodCraft told me that GF does a good job making sure all their products will work well together....

I also happen to have some EM6000 on hand, but am concerned that it may not be tough enough. I don;t know enough to know if the chemistries will mix with the first part of my schedule above.

My only experience in finishing recently was I refinished our oak coffee table in Behlen's Rock Hard Table Top, and I refinished our nook table with a MinWax poly finish.

If anyone can shed some light on this for me, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

[Todd Burch]

Welcome Gary!

I haven't used any of the finished you are proposing, but tons of people here have.

After you work with different woods for a while, like pine, cherry and birch, you will learn when and where and why certain areas will blotch. It's all about grain direction. If your wood doesn't have any of the characteristic blotch-susceptible grain patterns, there's no point in using a pre-stain conditioner to avoid blotch. It's really pretty easy to eyeball once you've seen it a time or two. The good news is that using it on wood that doesn't exhibit screwy grain won't hurt you. When you do use it, it's purpose is to "fill that screwy grain" with oil, so that the screwy grain doesn't absorb more pigment stain then the surrounding "normal" grain. There might be times when you want to the wood to blotch, if you are going for a certain look (ie, with reclaimed lumber).

I would suggest to go get more beetle kill pine and set the 2X4 top aside for a shop table project.

Gel stains mute the look of the wood. I am not a fan.

Finally, consider what you are proposing... a good durable finish, on one of the softest woods in the forest. I would go with a repairable finish, like lacquer, varnish or shellac, versus a poly.

Todd

[Prashun Patel]

In my experience, staining pine is hit or miss with respect to blotching. Bkz of that, it's hard to test. Also, 2x4 construction lumber can be fairly wet or warpy over a period of time. When people make workbenches out of it, it's recommended that you let it stabilize for a "while". For these reasons, if it were me, I'd go with natural color and just a topcoat. This way, if you had to flatten areas in a year or two, refinishing might not be as difficult as if you introduce a color. I'm not saying this is a huge risk, just something to think about.

If you determine you definitely want color, then you might consider an aniline dye or a dye-based (not pigment based) stain. These types of stains tend to color more evenly than pigment stains. If you are intimidated by dye, then I recommend a gel stain. yes, it can obscure the grain, but personally, I don't think you'll be missing much on laminated fir/pine.

Some of the professionals (I am not a pro) here do not recommend polyurethane on tables, but I actually think it's a great choice on a pine table if done right: don't build it up; wipe it on thinned, and stop when the sheen is even. I finished a pine table and bench this way and I've noticed they resist abrasion - even when the surface gets dented - very well. When thin, I find little visual difference between poly and other varnishes. Further, if you use a gel stain, then the improved optical clarity of the alkyd or phenolic varnishes over poly is arguably moot.

[Peter J Lee]

You've already got a difference between legs and top - what about staining the top and leaving the legs natural? Maybe in a few years of wear and tear in the kitchen, you'll want to retire your top to the workshop and then you'd have some legs ready for whatever. Use shellac for the legs and you can do whatever you want in the future as far as finish.

I like gel stain for repairing minor damage, to add a little detail when you're doing a final touch up or as a quick finish for something that'll go inside a cabinet or something as well as doing Jeff Jewitt's mission finish schedule. But it works for those things because its sort of like a thin paint.

I had a situation where I was trying to match interior trim to existing cabinets and struggling with it. One product I probably never would have tried but gave a shot because it looked like a match was Minwax water based stain. I didn't end up using it, but it went on really well (brushed).

Speaking only for myself, choosing a finish for pine is tough. Fresh milled it can be absolutely beautiful, but it doesn't stay that way. I don't much like it with dark coloring and a lot of finishes look kitschy to me. I'm actually looking forward to trying the Minwax on something small and seeing how it looks.

Do you have any woodworking buddies? Maybe they have some stains you could try on scraps.

[Gary Hamor]

Guys,

Thanks for your fine comments.

I built the top out of 2x4s because I didn't want to screw up my stock of beetle kill. But now that I know my method worked well, I'm leaning toward making a new top out of 8-10" wide beetle kill boards. And if I do that, I think I'll avoid the staining step and go for a satin top coat over a natural look.

If I did that, what would you recommend I use?

Thanks.

[Rob Lindquist]

I was in the same place a year ago, (you can probably search my thread) I made a kitchen table out of pine to match our cabin interior style. I asked here and a few other forums and was steared towards a Spar Varnish, forgot which one I used but will look tonight. Anyway the thought was the wood is soft, so to should the finish so it doesn't crack or chip when the wood gets dented, and it will.

It turned out awesome, and still looks awesome. There are dents from the rivets in peoples jeans, I also made benches, but the finish didn't scratch or chip, it "moved" with the wood. I wiped with tung oil and finished with Spar and after about one month I did a quick wet sand and buff to get out a few nibs, it looks like new, in the sun all day too.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?160247-Behlens-rock-hard-table-top&highlight=pine+table

[Peter J Lee]

Hey, I like that table Rob. That's interesting.

[Gary Hamor]

Rob,
Thanks. I read your thread from last year, too. I'd be interested in knowing which product you used, if you're able to locate it.

[Rob Lindquist]

I used Helmsman spar urethane, wiped with BLO first. I will look for pictures, but the table has a lot of depth and irredesence to it. So far not a mark on it other than the dents from the rivets on jeans, and the finish is not scratched or chipped at these spots, it just followed the movement of the wood. I recall adding a product to help the spar flow out and it turned out with no brush marks.