Finishing laminated spiral handrail - soft maple

[Andre Cormier]

Good day! I just finished laminating a spiral staircase handrail piece by piece around and over an ugly and crooked 1 1/4 metal tube. Fairly limited to the shaping of it but it's much nicer than what was there before.

Now, after all that work, I don't want to mess it up with the finish especially since I don't have much experience in finishing.

Handrail details; 16 feet long, 2 3/4 wide, 4" tall, 360 degree twist to the second floor. a few sections of the rail is close to the wall making it hard to use an HPLV.

One thing I would like to avoid is making the lines of the lamination more noticeable. The color that I would like would be close the piece of flooring in the picture but the floor is IPE so lots of tones in there to get close to.

Options I've been thinking of:

1. Poly then Minwax then Poly again (think I saw this on the forum someplace). I suspect this option would be more fool proof for blotchiness and maybe lamination visibility.
2. dye; not sure if the dimensions of the rail would make this difficult to use or if it would make the lamination pieces stand out.
3. Shellac with thanstint ?
4. BLO?

What would you recommend to finish the handrail?

Thanks for your help234857

[Scott Holmes]

Option 1 is going to produce the terrible results you want to avoid.

Option 2 is the good start, which will help minimize blotchiness on soft maple.

Option 3 Shellac with TransTint dye is a toner which will help with overall color. Toners are applied BETWEEN clear coats. Toners are sprayed 99% of the time.

Option 4 BLO will give you an amber color, no where near Ipe. It will prevent any other coloring steps from coloring the wood.

This is not a good project to learn these techniques... Practice on scrap wood.

My recommedation would be to use TransFast water soluble dye. Next day use a gel stain. Seal it with shellac and then top coat.

FYI Poly is for floors. There are much better varnishes out there than polyurethane varnish. I would suggest Waterlox Original it is a top quality phenolic resin tung oil varnish that is far superior to any of the big box store polys.

[Prashun Patel]

I think you should get a bunch of scrap and test. Matching can be tricky. Especially on a handrail where the light can be dramatically different from location to location.

Here's how I would start:

1. Base coat with waterbased medium brown dye that is light-fast. TransTINT is not so light fast. According to Scott, TransFAST is more lightfast, but comes in powder form. If that handrail is going to see a lot of light, a dye that does not fade is critical.

2. Seal coat of dewaxed shellac

3. Dark brown gel stain.

The Gel stain 'glaze' like this helps to even color out. It almost acts like a paint. This is a good thing if you are seeking to minimize the visibility of the laminations. There are 2 risks with the lamination visibility post finishing: the glue lines can become visible, and the laminations themselves absorb stain differently. The gel stain will help 'hide' both of these things at the expense of grain clarity. On a laminated handrail, though, I'm not sure that's so important.

The nice thing about the glazing is that you can apply a couple coats to sneak up on the color. However, know that if you lay it on thick, it'll dry badly and will look like paint. Getting the right balance is something that takes a couple tries.

That's why I say it's important to test.


While you are at it, try testing a piece without the dye but with a shellac sealer and then gel stain, and a third with no dye or shellac, and just the gel stain. It is entirely possible that you may not need the dye. It adds depth and dimension but may not be critical if the color is dark.

[Andre Cormier]

Thankfully I have lots of scrap to practice on. Unfortunatelly I have transtint on the way. Should I avoid using it?

Gel stain - what brand should I look for?

Shellac - can I get away with the Pre mix dewaxed stuff like bullseye seal coat?

Based on all the comments on this forum I will be using waterlox original as the finish coat

Thanks for your help?

[Prashun Patel]

Ask Scott about Gel stain brands and the Transtint. Personally, I've only used General Finishes Gel Stain recently. I've used Bartleys about 5 years ago, but is it even made any more?

Shellac: Sealcoat is fine to use.

[Scott Holmes]

In my shop gel stains are all equivalent when used as a glaze.

As for the dye, TransTint is alcohol AND water soluble. You will not be able to brush on the Seal coat of dewaxed shellac without moving the dye around a bit. Also if you spray the seal coat; drips or runs will move the dye around. That's why I recommend a water ONLY soluble dye e.g. TransFast.

Either way make sure to use your dye in water, it's much easier to control than alcohol dyes, they dry very very quickly.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Thankfully I have lots of scrap to practice on. Unfortunatelly I have transtint on the way. Should I avoid using it?

Gel stain - what brand should I look for?

Shellac - can I get away with the Pre mix dewaxed stuff like bullseye seal coat?

Based on all the comments on this forum I will be using waterlox original as the finish coat

Thanks for your help?

I used Waterlox original on my handrails with nothing else. They came out great! You say that you will use it as your final coat. Can you put waterlox on top of another finish (like dewaxed shellac)?

Mixing shellac from flakes is easy, so don't stress to much about it if you opt to go that route.