Seeking Your Thoughts on Stain Brands

[Kent Cori]

Todd Burch has a separate thread going on some cherry bathroom cabinets he just finished. If you haven’t already done so, take a look because they are gorgeous!

One of the side issues discussed was brands of stain. Todd used a product from ML Campbell that obviously looks great and performs well to boot. I’ve been using Minwax stains up until now but have been less than totally satisfied. They don’t seem to do as well as I would like on many woods and take a long time to cure, particularly in humid Florida. I’ve also used some aniline dyes that seem to work well but have some disadvantages as well.

I was just wondering what brands of oil and water based stains the rest of you use. I thought this might be an opportunity to share our experiences and opinions.

[Chris Padilla]

While I haven't stained a project yet, I've done several samples of stains using Velvit Oil brand of stains.

Most of my experience with Velvit Oil is the natural flavor but I did some sample stains of dark walnut and mahogony and they were just gorgeous.

I stained some straight-grained fir, maple, walnut, and wenge. It was an interesting test to see how the various woods reacted to the stain. My favorite was the mahagony on walnut...it brought a dark red to the walnut that was spectacular.

I'm finding that I really like the hand-rubbed oils for finishes. One need not worry what crap is floating around one's shop. Wipe on, wipe off...no muss, no fuss. VO doesn't need any other protection and so far so good with my projects...Barbara Gill is a good person to hit up for long-term experience with VO.