Faux stain not soaking in....

[Scooter B]

Hi All,

I have done some previous projects ie a fretless electric bass guitar in flamed maple that came out very nice and refinishied some monotone stained pine furniture (hand me downs) with a faux burled/mahogany appearance topped off with tung oil.

Now I have spent six months of weekends building a large double pedistal recording desk roughly 4' high 6' long and 4' deep with birch plywood and aspen.

I wanted to match the faux finish in the bedroom (to keep the wife happy) and I seem to be in stain FUBAR somehow.

The plan was to do the faux stain, buff on some tung oil and polish out working from 400 to 600 wet dry grit with the last two layers of tung. Then top it off with a poly satin for protection. The bed room furniture has not held up well to scatches, cats and children.

UNFORTUNATELY I thought I had read that using a sanding sealer would prevent grain raising and help the finishing process and applied something listed as a stain "primer"/sanding sealer. Then I applied a minwax pre-stain treatment and then the stain.

Unfortunately after a good twenty minutes of stain setting left nothing staining the wood at rub down and the "primer" sanding sealer left a shelac like glaze on the wood.

I spent the entire 3 day Meomorial day weekend stripping the sealer, rinsing thoroughly with water, re-sanding, and wiping down with mineral spirits. The next weekend I re-vacumed, tack clothed and re-applied a minwax pre-stain. The stain took a little better but not very deep at all.

To get the darkness and faux finish I want I used a foam brush with (Minwax) a Red Mahogany (base coat), Colonial American to add some brown over the red and lastly added some Jacobean (almost black). I have a good four coats of stain built up total.

By applying the Jacobean with a thin coat and coming back over it with a mineral spirit dampend foam brush I spread the darker color out to add some "figured character". The finished effect is a fauq antiqued burled mahogany.

The problem is that the stain has dried on more like coats of paint and is a little rubbery in some places. After drying for two days with space heaters keeping the garage a balmy 80 degrees - some places are still not dry and when I tried to apply the tung oil to the dry areas everything but the first stain coat lifted out. Everything but the very last coat of Jacobean sat at least a whole week.

My question (and please forgive the length of my post)is Where do I go from here? Is this stain ever going to set?

Options;
1. Let it cure for a few more days and try the tung oil again?

2. Skip the tung oil and just put the satin poly over the "layered stain" finish?

3. Set the desk and myself on fire in sheer frustration?

I am off work this week and desperately want to have this project out of my parking space, get my recording gear installed and get the desk in the bedroom.

Any good knowledgable ideas?

[Scooter B]

Strange update....

I went out to check on the stain drying process this morning.

If you read my lengthy post above several coats of stain lifted when I applied the tung oil to the top shelf.

To redarken the finish I added some of the jacobean oil stain to the tung oil and applied a thin film to the top shelf with a foam brush.

This morning the newly applied tung and oil stain mix has dried hard, shiny and smooth while the rest of the stained desk is still tacky and not dried after three days of drying in a heated garage.

What the.....?

I suppose I will forgo the more detailed faux stain and just add the dark stain to the tung oil and redo the whole project that way.

I just don't get why the one day old tung oil and stain oil mixture dried hard in under 24 hours and the plain stain is still tacky after three days....from my research the tung oil should take longer to dry.

[Sawduster]

Is this the same container of stain etc from the earlier project? If so, it may have gone bad. Heck, even if this is a newly purchased can, it could still be bad as it may have been sitting on the shelf where you bought it for months and months. Finishes can and do go bad, especially after they been opened and exposed to the elements and possible contamination. "Tung Oil" is not always tung oil, i.e. "Tung Oil Finish" is a long oil varnish with a bunch of thinner added. Formby, Minwax, others make their own Tung Oil Finish and it has very little, if any tung oil. If you are applying one of those, then the driers in that finish may have caused the stain in those areas to dry.

Also, the Prestain treatment and the sanding sealer both serve the same basic purpose of filling in the grain of the wood with something that is easy to sand. You can get as good or better results by using a thinned version of your final finish. Also, it sound like you are sorta using one of the stains as a paint, so the use of either is unneccessary.

[Scooter B]

Thanks for the input Terry.

The stain was newly purchased and the local Loews I got it from has only been open a year so I don't think it is too old but it could have set in a warehouse.

Despite all my stipping, sanding and cleaning the original sealer seems to have permantly affected the stain ablilty of the wood. It should not have left a glossy shelac type finish.

I have some wood that I did not use the sealer on (accidentaly) that took the stain very well.

My original intent was not to use the stain as a paint but to put down a base coat of red mohagany and add one or two more tones to the wood in "splotchy" patterns to simulate an antique burled oak or mahogany.

This techique worked quite well on the bedroom pine wood furniture.

Unfortantely there just was not much soaking in.

Yes I am using a tung oil finisher by Minwax so I bet there is something in there to speed up the drying process but they don't list the ingredients on the can.

[Scooter B]

Six months of working my rear off and I am about ready to set it on fire and my house while I am at it.

The stain won't stay on the wood and it won't come out of the driveway (and I asume the garage floor either).

I had put three coats of Min Wax Tung Oil Finisher and let it dry a week the wood was finally as dark as I wanted it underneath.

Then I go to sand out the Tung with a "00" steel wool synthetic by hand and 600 grit up to 1500 grit wet dry sand paper with some liquid furniture polish as a lubricant.

Most but not all the areas have the darker coats (basically everything but the very first coat) peeling off like bad paint. It looked good under the tung but needed to be polished out a few rough spots smoothed out. What the hell is wrong with this wood?

I think it is made of Teflon.

Although I wanted a faded hand oiled antique finish I did not want a peeled paint look.

Would switching to a Danish Varnish be a good idea at this point?

Also how do I get wood stain out of concrete?

So far I have tried mineral spirits, thiner and TSP nothing is working.

[RudeDog]

I'm no expert on finishing - I'm having my own issues there. But for the driveway I'd recommend charcoal ashes. So far that stuff has sucked up everything I've spilled on my garage floor and drive way. Luckily I still grill out the 'old-fashioned' way with real charcoal and I save quite a few ashes for just such occasions. Just pour it on the bad spots and let it set a couple days. If you still have spots then add some mineral spirits to the mixture. It may not take it all out but it will make a big difference. Last week my wife spray painted a wire chair in the drive way and the charcoal took almost all the paint up.

Good luck.

[Cabinetbuilder30]

Scooter?

I can feel your pain. I use to be a hobbiest and now I'm a professional Custom Furniture Maker. Let me start out by saying first and formost:

The yellow can stains you're using are crap. They're about 80%oil and 20% pigment. They're making a fortune off of people. You need a better quality stain with more pigment in it, such as Pratt Lambert.

There are better stains that we use in the industry such as Mohawk, but you as a homeowner, won't be able to purchase it. "More than likely"

In regard to your problem, you need to use a good stripper, not the pretty smelling citrus ones. They smell pretty for a reason. "They don't work nearly as well"

Once you strip the piece completely, you need to neutralize the acids in the stripper by washing the piece throughly with Lacquer Thinner. If it's made with a veneer, don't soak the veneer or you could take a chance of it pulling up.

Don't EVER put more than 2 coats of any stain on wood, or you'll get exactly what happened; it felt and looked like paint and won't stick.

To achieve darker/more consistant colors we use aniline dyes which is a spray on process. If you don't know what you're doing, you can kiss your piece goodbye and back to stripping it.

Go to your local paint store and ask them if they sell Stain Base and the tints. You can mix up your own colors, but keep in mind, if you add too much tint/pigment, it will be like wiping on mud.

If you're able to provide a picture of what you're trying to achieve, it would certainly help me out.

[Scooter B]

Cabinetbuilder30

Many thanks your input sounds quite experienced and makes sense.

The stripper I used seemed rather industrial strength and it ate through my latex gloves causing mild chemical burns where it reacted with the latex. But alas I must surmise it was still not adequately effective in getting all the sealer out. If only I had a time machine and had not used that sealer.

I gave up on the tung oil finisher and went straight to the polyurethane and it seems to not be lifting the stain out.

As far as a picture I may be able to take something of our "restained" bedroom furniture that I wanted to blend in with but it is kind of a moot point now but when I am done I will try to post my finished product and the other furniture.

Since I had to use a combination of woods birch plywood for tops an sides but also some thicker pieces of pine and aspen for drawer fronts, support and accent peices that required routing I did not think a one solid color of stain would look right and went with a faux theme that has worked well on the bedroom furniture.

I had my suspicions about the yellow stuff being crap but I have not really looked for any woodworking specialty stores and had to use Home Depot and Lowes gift certificates for my supplies.

Thanks for your help.

[Cabinetbuilder30]

Not a problem at all. They do sell Chemical Stripping gloves at H.D. I would highly recommend you buy them. As I'm sure you already know, wear long sleeves, pants, goggles and a mask when using strippers.

Sometimes, when stripping Oak or open grained woods, it's a good idea to take a wire brush and really get into the pours of the wood to get all of the chemical and existing stain, finish and whatever other products have come in contact with the wood.

Let me know if I may be of assistance to anything else, or if you have further questions about your current project, please let me know.