Wood Conditioner and Stain

[Bernie Weishapl]

I am making a project out of what I call white pine. I used it because it had absolutely no knots. I was talking to the gentleman who owns our local lumber yard a question about some hardware for it. He asked me if I had used conditioner on the pine before I stained it. I told him I had not done stained it yet. So he sold me some conditioner. He said this will keep the stain splotching. So I did and followed the directions to a tee. I let it sit over night like it said in fact it was 2 nights. I then applied the stain and wiped as it said to remove the excess. Problem is it won't dry and it is like sticky. It is like it has a sticky oily film. It has sit for a full 24 hrs. now and is still sticky. Like I said it has a sticky oily feel about it. What made me even madder was it still had splotching. Is this normal and can I just put my varathane on it now? I am not sure what is going on. Any help would be appreciated.

Bernie

[Kelly C. Hanna]

You have to wipe the conditioner just like you do stain. I didn't see you mention that and it may be the reason you have sticky stuff now.

White pine like on HD's shelves (no knots) requires no conditioner normally. It is a fairly tight celled wood and takes stain fairly evenly. I sand to 180 then stain.

You can't add finish to a sticky stain job. If it were me I'd hit it with mineral spirits and remove the sticky stuff, then stain.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Well I got some mineral spirits from Wal-Mart. I cleaned the project and restained. The stain color is not quite what I wanted but at least it is dry now and not sticky. Thanks Kelly.


Bernie

[Kelly C. Hanna]

You bet Bernie...I usually wait only a few minutes before wiping the excess off when I stain...the norm is to leave the stain on about 5-10 minutes at the most depending on the color darkness you seek.

Glad you got past that problem. I did that the first time I stained something and was thinking it would eventually dry and it did, but it took a few days. Talk about splotchy....it was a very porous Pine project....looked like someone had tossed water ballons filled with black stain in some parts (the finish was supposed to be a Red Mahogany color).

[Lee Schierer]

I made a cabinet for my DIL last fall and encountered a similar problem when I stained it. The first coat of stain (I didn't use wood conditioner) dried stcky. I re-applied the stain and the second coat dried without the stickiness. I suspect that the pitch in the wood had something to do with it. In the future I will wipe down pine with mineral spirits befre I try staining it to see if I still get the stickiness.

Lee