Finish woes from a new finisher. long.

[keith ouellette]

I haven't had much experience with light stains. Dark seemed easier or a natural finish. seeing I was making my first permanent piece for the house ( pull out laundry basket and drawer set for the laundry room) I decided to try a nice light custom color on some hard maple. I made my face frames and drawers and drawer fronts with no problem and even figured out my cope and stick bits for my frame and panel door (first time also). All excited I started to stain my face frames with a mixture of a few different min wax stains( I know nobody likes min wax and i agree now) to get the color I wanted. The small test pieces of maple I used to get the color right looked fine so I assumed everything would go well. I was wrong.
As the stain dried a grayish hue came through on much of the frame fronts. ( I now know those are pores that stay hidden with dark stain but show up in spades with a light one). Looking for help from the creekers, Brian Weick
recommended a web site (thank you Brian) with great info.
I mixed up some controller and tested the new stain procedure on some scrap maple and it looked great ( of course it does on scrap). Then I do the face frame. Controller, dry, controller, dry, gel stain, dry, stain, dry, stain and the face frames looked great. With confidence I start the drawers and panel. The whole long procedure. Then I notice the gray blotchy pores on the panel and one drawer in just enough spots to look bad.
The next day I take out the orbit sander and some 60 grit ( I didn't have any paper for the drum sander) and sand them down and then go with the 80 grit the 120 and so on till they were smooth.
Once more I start the long staining process. Controller, dry, controller, dry, gel stain, dry and then I see all these little half circles about the size of the head of a 16d nail. Some how I made them by digging the edge of the sander in to speed up the sanding process.
In the time it took to start staining again I had bought some paper for the drum sander which made quick work of sanding out the new mistakes and then I used the orbital sander to get it smooth.
Once more I start the long staining process of Controller, dry, controller, dry, gel stain then a long string of curses as I bruised my knuckles punching the bench. I didn't get all the lines from the 80 grit drum out so there were a few lines in the wood that only showed up in the stain. Enough was enough. I've sands all I could sands and I can't sands no more. I'll see how it turns out when I am finished.
I hope its true. Mistakes mean knowledge.

[John Mihich]

Well I stay away from stain alone when dealing with maple or pine. I use dyes and stains. Dyes will give a much better coverage. I will use oil based stains after the dyes just to add color if needed. Dyes are easy and any color can be achieved. I know their are people who can stain maple using all sorts of tricks but I just never had good luck with them so if I use any coloring agent it's a dye. The last thing I used was Solarlux - liked it. I usually use a wate based although alcohol based will work also.

You can use, another love/hate thing, Polyshades. I use it as a tinting base. I will thin it 50/50 and wipe it on. Brush on just doesn't work well. I have used Polyshades to tint a piece to get an exact color match; a thin coating will do wonders in small color changes and since it is a poly it gives a good hard finish. I won't use it as a only solution; it's difficult to get real even.

[Jim Becker]

and since it is a poly it gives a good hard finish.

Poly is the softest of the three general types of varnish finishes. Polyurethane resins are used to provide abrasion resistance since they were originally intended for floors. To get that property, the finish needs to be softer so it gives a little rather than scratching. It's also one of the reasons that it generally has less clarity than alkyd or phenolic varnishes. There are so many myths about poly that just don't hold up...unfortunately, it's so heavily marketed by Miniwax and others in the retail environment that most folks don't know there are alternatives.