Gel Stain pros and cons

[Scott Rader]

Working on a new piece of cherry furniture. Considering using gel stain for the first time. For those of you with experience with it, please list the good and the bad.

thanks in advance

[Todd Burch]

Cons:
It will obscure the beauty of the cherry.
It will interfere with cherry's darkening, and thus it's true beauty coming out over time.
It will give a plastic-y look to the piece.
It will give a plastic-y feel to the piece.
It will yellow over time.
If you are wanting a really dark stain, rotsa ruck.

Pros:
It's cheap and available at the borg.

Todd

[Jim Becker]

So-called gel stains are more like a glaze. They more or less sit on top of the wood.

My normal finishing regimen for cherry is BLO, de-waxed garnet shellac and whatever top-coat I plan on using for the particular project. Sometimes that's just the shellac. Sometimes it's water borne product from Target Coatings; either their USL or the Hybrivar alkyd varnish. I prefer to let the cherry age naturally, although I'll sometimes help it along a little with some direct sun exposure after applying the BLO.

[Craig Kershaw]

Scott - I'm building a bar in my basement and am using cherry, both 1/2" plywood and solid wood. I wanted a darker look to the wood but didn't want the usual furniture store cherry look, which can be almost black. I was going for a darker look but wanted the beauty of the grain to show. I had not worked much with coloring and finishing wood before. I tried numerous products from BLO and garnet shellac, oil based cherry "stain", waterbased dyes, and tung oil to name a few. I had a real chemistry set thing going on.
I found two approaches that gave me the color I was looking for. The first was BLO followed by garnet shellac. To the last coat of garnet shellac I added a few drops of red dye to the shellac and got a real nice reddish hue to the wood. The other approach that got the finish I was looking for started with the Bartley brown mahogany gel stain. After I put the gel stain on I immediately wiped down the wood with a rag dipped in Waterlox. This removed some of the darkness of the gel stain. To the last coat of waterlox I added a few drops of red dye which gave me the reddish hue I was looking for. The nice thing about a gel stain is that it limits blotching, which I found to be a real problem if you try to use a stain. After I put the gel stain on I immediately wiped down the wood with a rag dipped in Waterlox. This removed some oIts almost the same in appearance to the BLO and garnet shellac finish I came up with but I found it easier to do.

[Scott Rader]

Scott - I'm building a bar in my basement and am using cherry, both 1/2" plywood and solid wood. I wanted a darker look to the wood but didn't want the usual furniture store cherry look, which can be almost black. I was going for a darker look but wanted the beauty of the grain to show. I had not worked much with coloring and finishing wood before. I tried numerous products from BLO and garnet shellac, oil based cherry "stain", waterbased dyes, and tung oil to name a few. I had a real chemistry set thing going on.
I found two approaches that gave me the color I was looking for. The first was BLO followed by garnet shellac. To the last coat of garnet shellac I added a few drops of red dye to the shellac and got a real nice reddish hue to the wood. The other approach that got the finish I was looking for started with the Bartley brown mahogany gel stain. After I put the gel stain on I immediately wiped down the wood with a rag dipped in Waterlox. This removed some of the darkness of the gel stain. To the last coat of waterlox I added a few drops of red dye which gave me the reddish hue I was looking for. The nice thing about a gel stain is that it limits blotching, which I found to be a real problem if you try to use a stain. After I put the gel stain on I immediately wiped down the wood with a rag dipped in Waterlox. This removed some oIts almost the same in appearance to the BLO and garnet shellac finish I came up with but I found it easier to do.

Thanks for the insight.

[George Bowen]

Is it possible to use a gel stain as a glaze?

I have been playing with some gel stain on cherry mouldings that I have. And I can get it to fill some of the profiles to give a slightly glazed loook but still have the lightly stained cherry showing on the rest of the piece.

Or is that not a good idea. Sorry to thread jack kind of...

[Rob Amadon]

"Is it possible to use a gel stain as a glaze?"

Yes. That is actually the only way I would use it.

To Scott: Try the BLO and garnet shellac. Both will darken the cherry without having to commit the sin of staining cherry and masking the subtle grain that gives it it's beauty.

Rob

[Todd Burch]

The best finish I every got out of cherry was for a store display fixture I did for Tiffanies in the Galleria in Houston. I used a mixture of yellow and orange toners and then lacquered it. It was unbelievably beautiful. If I could have used a 5' by 7' platform 12" tall, I would have kept it.

Todd