Correcting for oversanding . . .

[Jackie Szabo]

I generally sand to my furniture to 400 grit and use an oil-based varnish.

After having sanded a rocking chair to 400, I realized that I want to apply a water-based dye followed by an oil-based stain. I have read recommendations to sand only to 180 or 220 so that the wood will accept the dyes/stains.

How do I correct my over-sanding? Is it as simple a sanding the piece with the desired final grit (180 or 200)?

Any strong recommendations as to whether 180 or 220 is better?

If it matters, my chair is made of quarter-sawn white oak.

Thanks.

[Jeff Roltgen]

I used to prep to 220, and long ago realized it is more than necessary, and often undesirable to exceed 180 for run of the mill oil stains.
As for the dye, IME, you should be fine without a re-sand, in terms of color absorbency.

However, if you're wanting to control grain raise, which will be quite pronounced with the QS White oak, get it wet now. Re-sand with your 400 to knock back fuzzies, then apply dye.
Be vigilant as it dries, as pores are likely to wick and hold dye, risking a blotchy appearance if not tended to as the pooling pores are drying/bleeding back out.

jeff

[Jackie Szabo]

Thank you for your response.

If this were you, would you resand the project with 180 grit paper? I will be applying an off-the-shelf oil stain over the dye?

[Jeff Roltgen]

Wild card here is the porous wood. Still probably good to dampen and raise grain, then lightly cut back the fuzzies with 400grit.
Once the dye process is complete and dry, as stated, it will open pores a bit, but should be more controlled at this point. This will allow very good penetration of the pigmented oil stain, resulting in a rich tone. Key here is to tame the grain raise early on, otherwise, risk of loosing color as you sand topcoats, which will naturally knock off the colored flags of raised grain, risking exposure of raw, unstained specks.

You've touched upon a method I like to use on smoother hardwoods that do not take the off the shelf oil stains well at all. One of my favorites is Dark Mission Brown dye on maple, followed by General Finishes Java Gel stain. Again, the dye opens those pores, which is desirable with a hard smooth maple surface, allowing much better penetration of the second step of oil stain. In these instances, I prep sand to 180 grit and skip the grain raising/sanding step. Apply dye, wait 'til fully dry, and go straight to the oil stain. Results are a deep, rich fudge brown/black espresso finish on maple. You can get away with this simply due to the closed pore structure of maple, whose grain is much better behaved when reacting to H2O in the finishing processes.

As with all finishing, the more sample work you do, the more confident you'll be in proceeding.

Good Luck!

jeff

[Jackie Szabo]

Thank you!

[Jackie Szabo]

Seems to have all worked out okay. Thanks for the help.

20220806_102337 (chair back).jpg

[Jeff Roltgen]

Looks great - thanks for follow-up!

Jeff

[mark mcfarlane]

Jackie, your chair back came out beautiful. Can you share which dye and stain you used?