Finishing Problem

[George Bokros]

Applied stain to this panel this morning and am puzzled as to what happened. The light area was prepped and finished all the same as the rest of the panel.

Thoughts as to what may have happened?

What can I do fix this? I cannot spray to tone it so that is not an option.

My thoughts are as follows:

1.) Sand the area and try to apply stain again.

2.) Mix some stain with some poly and try to darken the color that way. My father-in-law did this when we were finishing some wood trim in a house we had built and I missed some areas when staining.

3.) Make a new panel.

Ideas and thoughts welcome


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[John TenEyck]

I would strip it with chemical stripper, sand it uniformly, and then stain it again. Are you sure you prepped it the same over the entire board? That just doesn't make sense unless you didn't sand it uniformly or maybe you wiped that side of the board with something just before you applied the stain?

John

[George Bokros]

Absolutely prepped the same. The panel is maple ply, would you still use chemical stripper?

[John TenEyck]

Hmm. OK, now knowing that it's plywood I'm guessing the problem was caused by glue permeating through the veneer layer in that area. To overcome that I think you have a couple of options, without stripping off what you already have done. You could try re-staining the lighter area, carefully wiping or brushing the stain onto just the lighter area, and carefully wiping it off. Another option would be to apply a gel stain of the the same color to the lighter area. Or you could try adding the stain to your topcoat, as you suggested. Good luck.

John