1st Attempt at Stained Oak

[Richard Madden]

great job! I like the tones so don't kid your self.

Doing a lot of ebony look on flat work, I would use the steel wool trick.. especially on an open pore wood like oak.

Next time try ink pen, waterbased.. come in little 3oz bottles. most of our office supplies have them.. Darker you want it, just keep adding coatss. In larger work, I use General Finishes Ebony Dye Stain.. Really good stuff and you again just keep adding coats. Wear gloves and cut up a car wash sponge to apply, soak for a bit and wipe. Just remember when it's dry to not freak out because the color is more of a grey haze.. it will be fine with a top coat. I highly suggest doing a sample for your first time so you can get an idea how many coats. On hard maple, I tend to apply 2 coats and it's very dark. Oak would prob need 3 and I don't believe you will get it get black unless you filled the pores. The open pores will reflect the grey/off tones, which I like but not jet black.

Great job on the project

Peter, thanks for the comments. I would have thought the ebonizing solution would turn the oak a nice black all around, but the side grain left a lot to be desired. The dye I used came from a CL ad. It's a leather/fabric dye called "Blacker than Black", and only cost $0.50 for 16 oz. when bought by the case of 12 bottles!! He had other colors and a case could be of mixed colors, so a good deal for certain. Perhaps several coats of the ebonizing solution might have done the trick, but 1 coat of dye worked fine. Thanks again.

[Baxter Smith]

Great job. Both the finial and the oak are very striking!

[Roger Chandler]

Richard..............this one has a lot of WOW factor! Great finial, and the grain treatment is just way cool! Very creative conceptually, and you pulled off a unique and well done form!

[Richard Madden]

Very nice Richard. This is my favorite so far. The white finial looks very good with the piece. Your liming looks good. You did a nice job on the top and the foot. Nice work.
I gave up looking for white paste shoe polish! Know what you mean about setting up to take pictures. I leave my tent up until my wife says something!

Thanks for the comments, Mark. When I was searching for the white shoe polish I did notice on Amazon it was like $0.99 a can. Of course, no idea what shipping would cost, but if included with an order for other stuff it might be worthwhile. I just didn't want to wait.

[Jim Adkins]

Creekers....on Richards recent visit he brought this piece for me to see. He un-wrapped it, sit it on the table & installed the finial and it immediately started uttering words.......like, "Pick Me
Up, Fondle Me". So I did. what a nice piece of work Richard. Thanks for sharing.
Jim A.

[Cathy Schaewe]

I like it a lot - especially the finial!

[Jim Burr]

Richard..first, always the best finials!!! The spiral is phenomenal!!. I can't really grab the shape, but I think a "vase" taper would be cool. Could you go into detail about the entire finishing process? I grabbed some liming wax a while back, and your piece is right where I want to go

[Richard Madden]

Richard..first, always the best finials!!! The spiral is phenomenal!!. I can't really grab the shape, but I think a "vase" taper would be cool. Could you go into detail about the entire finishing process? I grabbed some liming wax a while back, and your piece is right where I want to go

Jim, after the dye had dried I used a brass bristle brush to open the pores, then 4 coats of gloss WOP to seal the wood. Following the advice of Curt and Bill the white polish was applied to a small area at a time with a small piece of rag, then buffed by hand with some velour type cloth. Doing a small area is pretty important because the polish dries quick making buffing harder. That's about it. Thanks for your comments.

[Richard Madden]

Creekers....on Richards recent visit he brought this piece for me to see. He un-wrapped it, sit it on the table & installed the finial and it immediately started uttering words.......like, "Pick Me
Up, Fondle Me". So I did. what a nice piece of work Richard. Thanks for sharing.
Jim A.

Thanks, Jim. I need to confess something though. While you were looking at this piece I was trying to get that really cool antique workbench of yours out the door and in my truck. I couldn't get your dog to hold the door open so I gave up.