Staining Poplar

[Dave Zellers]

I have to make a fancy mantel for a client and she wants it stained rather dark. I will be using poplar.

I have searched here and learned a lot about staining & finishing poplar. I have ordered General Finishes Brown Mahogany & Espresso EF stain, Dark Walnut TRANSTINT dye and EF P/A Finish Satin. The consensus seems to be:

- sand smooooooth, wet, let dry and sand again.
- dye and seal with non wax shellac. Sand again?
- stain. I'll experiment with number of coats and which color(s).
- do I need to shellac again?
- clear finish.

My questions-
Do I need to spray the dye? I've never used dye before but I'm looking forward to it. I'd prefer to brush or wipe everything but if I have to spray some or all the steps I could do that. I haven't sprayed anything in decades but water based spraying is less daunting than the oil based I used to do.

Does 2 coats of weaker dye color have any advantage over 1 coat of stronger dye?

Any and all advice is more than welcome.

[John TenEyck]

Try everything on scrap first and let that be your guide. Poplar actually stains very nicely with oil based stains, but it also can blotch badly. I've had blotching problems with dye, too, and finally realized that if I spray it on I can avoid that problem. I spray only enough to wet the wood, no excess that would allow the dye to be pulled into the areas that want to blotch. And no wiping after it's sprayed; I just let it dry. This works great for me. So, no you don't necessarily need to spray the dye, but it works great for me. I typically only spray one coat, but you have to spray it very evenly not to get streaks. If that's a problem, two or three coats at lower concentration will reduce that problem, but will take a lot longer.

If your stain is water based you definitely need to seal the dye first, otherwise the water will pull up some of the dye and make a mess. You can seal the dye with dewaxed shellac (like SealCoat), but you will have to spray that on because Transtint also is soluble in alcohol so you are faced with the same problem if you try to apply it with brush or by wiping it on. If your stain is oil based you could forgo the sealer, or you could use a sealer like GF's Seal-A-Cell first. You can still use a waterbased finish over an oil based stain as long as you let the stain fully cure - a minimum of 72 hours in my experience and testing, or you cold apply a coat of dewaxed shellac over the dried stain first.

John

[Jerry Thompson]

I used Charles Neal's "Blotch Control" on a poplar blanket chest I made for practice. I first put the wood in the sun to get rid of the green. I applied the BC as directed and knocked the nubs back with 320 sand paper and applied General Finishes EB dye I mixed to look like cherry. It took two application of the dye to get the color I wanted but it all went on evenly with no blotching.

[Erik Christensen]

dye works differently than a stain - it penetrates the wood so the way you get a darker color is to mix a stringer dye - adding a second coat does nothing. it works great with brush/rag application - you flood the surface - keep it wet for a few minutes as the wood soaks up what it wants - then pickup excess and let it dry. for a wood that can blotch I have had better luck not sanding past 120 or 150 - my failings have been caused by over-sanding with a too fine grit and burnishing the wood which exacerbates the uneven liquid dye absorption. if you want to add a stain glaze a shellac coat on top of the dye would be a good idea to make sure the stain application does not pull up the dye. topcoat with shellac and then no worries about any issues with your final clear finish. you want a perfectly smooth finish surface then sand between coats of clear topcoats - that makes a much bigger difference than sanding bare wood to 320.

[Prashun Patel]

I haven't found blotch problems with either poplar or birch when doing an 'espresso' finish. I usually dye the wood with a medium brown dye, letting it blotch how it wants to. If the wood is blotch prone, then you can seal with shellac before oil staining (more variety, harder to penetrate) or gel stain (better performance, but fewer selections) with java/espresso/ebony. On many woods like oak or ash, you can go straight to the stain off the dye (without a sealer).

Like John, I do prefer to spray dye if I'm relying on it as the primary color. But under a dark "PotteryBarnNayRestorationHardware" type dark finish, it's just not critical to my novice eye.

The dye/stain combo does two things: 1) it gives the final finish a depth that a single tone does not have, 2) On woods with weird pores like oak, it avoids weird white dots that you can get from dye alone.

[Rick Potter]

I saw a tip once, I think on the Woodsmith TV show, where they said that the key to a good stain job on poplar was to use a gel stain. Never tried it myself.

Rick Potter

[Dave Zellers]

Thanks all, for the help. I think I'm ready to go but now the long wait for all my supplies to arrive.