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John Branam
05-20-2005, 12:06 PM
I going to start on finsihing a project made out of red oak, I usually leave the grain "open" but on this project I want a nice smooth even surface. So what do you use to fill the grain? I am going to be staining this piece and want the grain to stand out so do I fill before or after I stain? Can you use a water based filler with an oil stain?

Jeff Sudmeier
05-20-2005, 12:56 PM
John,

This was partially discussed in this previous thread (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=20397).

I have worked with oak a lot and used the procedure in the above post. However, I hardly ever stain woods.

Paul Dwight
05-20-2005, 1:30 PM
When I choose to fill the pores on a workpiece I almost always use Behlen's Pore-O-Pac, an oil based pore filler. It's easy to apply and work with because it doesn't dry quickly, and it doesn't shrink. The waterbased pore fillers I've used dried so fast that I had to work in small (1 or 2 square feet) areas or the product would dry before I could scrape off the excess. Also, the waterbased stuff seemed to shrink as it dried so that the process had to be repeated a second time to get a truly level surface.

I always stain first and then mix up some pore filler to match the color of the stained wood. Pore-O-Pac is readily tinted with Universal Pigment Colors.

You might want to seal the stained wood with dewaxed shellac before filling the pores. The big advantage to sealing first is that if you don't like the effect you're getting, you can just wipe off the pore filler (assuming it hasn't dried, of course).

Hope this helps. -- Paul

John Branam
05-20-2005, 3:59 PM
Thanks for the help everyone.

Tim Sproul
05-20-2005, 4:33 PM
dewaxed platina shellac.