Finishing New Doors

[bob pfohler]

This year I replaced all of our interior door moulding with craftsman style painted white. I just ordered 12 pine solid core 2 panels doors to replace all the crappy moulded white doors.
After cruising Pinterest my wife has decided she like the contrast of white moulding and dark stained doors. She chose General Finishes Expresso WB stain.
Never used WB finish on this large a project. I was going pre-treat before staining, should I also use the extender?

[Jim Becker]

Your challenge is going to be getting that pine to look good with an even color, honestly. It's not a great species to work with for the look you want to achieve, IMHO. This is regardless of whether or not you're going to use a waterborne product or an oil based product. If I were faced with this, I'd likely try to use either an opaque stain or honestly, paint.

Get yourself some pine that's similar to what the doors will be made from, prepare the surfaces and then buy small containers of various products to to test pieces. Be sure you clear coat all of your test pieces so that the color is represented accurately. That will help you decide what's possible and provide examples for your better half to either like or smack you up-side your head.

[John TenEyck]

Pine is terrible for blotching. You may benefit from going really dark with Espresso, however. If I had to do this I would spray it on. It's the only way I know to get uniform color on blotch prone woods. And, as Jim said, practice on scrap, start to finish, until you are satisfied. If I had to do it by hand I would seal the wood with Sealcoat shellac and then apply a gel stain. GF makes an Espresso OB gel stain. It might take more than one coat to get the color you want. Good luck.

John