Staining pine without yellow/red tint

[Mike Mcclaskie]

I’ve got knotty alder wood work (see photo) I bought new windows and they are pine. I’m spraying Seal Coat (wax free shellac) and TransTint coffee brown onto the pine; I also added a couple drops of green to the formula. Any suggestions on how to remove the red/yellow tint of the pine? Also, the shellac has a gloss finish, how do I get it to a satin?

[Stewart Lang]

Try working with a water-based finish? The green drops should help a little, but it's hard to truly change the tint of wood. If someone invented a magical solution to make any wood any color he'd be very rich :)

You can buy flattener for the gloss shellac. I believe there is some household product you can use to flatten the sheen as well, but I don't remember what it is off hand. Perhaps someone else will chime in.

[Jamie Buxton]

Jeff Jewitt, the guy who makes those Transtint stains, offers a shellac flattener. https://homesteadfinishingproducts.com/products-we-offer/finishes/shellac/

[Phil Mueller]

You might look into the spray toners offered by Mohawk. Many refinishers use them to adjust color. From what I’ve seen, refinishers do the initial stain, seal that with shellac, then tone, then shellac.

Most of the time to move a top coat from gloss to satin, I just rub it down with 0000 steel wool.