staining pine ?

[skeeterman]

I was making some small shelves and was looking into a cheap source of wood . had a few old pine 2x4 and 2x6s laying around so i planed them down to the thickness i wanted and cut the length and built my shelves,
I was wanting to put a dark stain on shelves so i chose black walnut.
But it seems the pine will not accept the stain, cannot get the stain to penetrate into the wood.
Any suggestions ? I would think that staining the 2x4 material would be an easy task.

[andes]

Pine is tough to stain because it's a softwood and tends to absorb stain unevenly so you get a lot of blotching.

American Woodworker ran an article a few years ago about how to stain pine nicely; it was a multi-step process which involved (amongst other things):

-Fill knotholes using epoxy.
-Seal the wood to prevent pitch from bleeding out. Shellac is a good sealer.
-Tint the wood. There were a couple of steps in this.
-Topcoat (polyurethane for example).

It was a lot of steps but produced a very nice finish. I think that pine lends itself to rustic furniture by nature.

A lot of the pine that people have laying around is relatively damp construction-grade lumber so when it dries it really dries and that results in a lot of dimensional change, cracking, etc. You'd probably want to dry the stuff out properly to bring it down to a low moisture content before you start working it. There are a lot of good articles online and in various woodworking books on working with pine.

Also this is a great natural finish for wood.

http://www.waterlox.com/

And check this site out - talks about staining soft woods

http://woodworking.about.com/b/2008/10/10/tips-for-staining-softwoods-evenly.htm


I was making some small shelves and was looking into a cheap source of wood . had a few old pine 2x4 and 2x6s laying around so i planed them down to the thickness i wanted and cut the length and built my shelves,
I was wanting to put a dark stain on shelves so i chose black walnut.
But it seems the pine will not accept the stain, cannot get the stain to penetrate into the wood.
Any suggestions ? I would think that staining the 2x4 material would be an easy task.

[flamesrule]

I find if you use wood conditioner on the pine before you stain it.It will not blotch this may help ya..
[/LIST]

Good Luck

[SteveEJ]

Stain sealer before applying stain takes care of most blotching. That is true for most all woods. If you want a darker finish than stain can produce you can get a finish with a dark pigment added. A good paint store can help you with this. It is basically a pigmented poly finish.

If you know that you want a really dark finish on your next project you will need to seal the wood with a good stain prep. Then try dyes. They mix well with denatured alcohol and come in many different pigments. If you use them make sure you use rubber gloves as they dye your hands too! ;-) Then use your favorite finish.. Experiment with dyes.. They are pretty easy to use!

[Ike]

I was making some small shelves and was looking into a cheap source of wood . had a few old pine 2x4 and 2x6s laying around so i planed them down to the thickness i wanted and cut the length and built my shelves,
I was wanting to put a dark stain on shelves so i chose black walnut.
But it seems the pine will not accept the stain, cannot get the stain to penetrate into the wood.
Any suggestions ? I would think that staining the 2x4 material would be an easy task.

I learn to stain pine by putting on a heavy coat and leave it on for about 5 minutes and wipe. Leaving it on for at least 5 minutes will raise the grain allowing the stain to penetrate.

Another trick I learn is to put the stain on the board and with 150 grit sand paper sanding with the grain lightly sand and wipe. I learned it as brandishing.


Ike

[gwizpro]

Okay, I will let you in on years of trying to get pine to stain evenly without all the blotching etc.....

Go to Sherwin Williams and get BAC Wiping stain. it DOES NOT BLOTCH pine. It penetrates perfectly and the color is consistent. We are able to stain stop staining in the middle of a board and then continue a minute later and you can not tell where you left off. You can also apply two coats and get a darker finish before applying finish coats.

NOW here is the neat part we sometimes do when we want something really dark, We stain, then 1 coat of KemAgua Lacquer (Sherwin Williams - Water Based)sprayed on with a HVLP System, let dry, rub it down with 220 grit to smooth out the fibers that raise, then STAIN AGAIN evenly, let dry and finish with two coats lacquer...

Say what you will but this has worked for us for two + years now.We are a production shop and I needed a way to stain pine without all the hassle, This stain did the trick for us.

Oh, and it works really great on hardwoods.

[Ike]

Okay, I will let you in on years of trying to get pine to stain evenly without all the blotching etc.....

Go to Sherwin Williams and get BAC Wiping stain. it DOES NOT BLOTCH pine. It penetrates perfectly and the color is consistent. We are able to stain stop staining in the middle of a board and then continue a minute later and you can not tell where you left off. You can also apply two coats and get a darker finish before applying finish coats.

NOW here is the neat part we sometimes do when we want something really dark, We stain, then 1 coat of KemAgua Lacquer (Sherwin Williams - Water Based)sprayed on with a HVLP System, let dry, rub it down with 220 grit to smooth out the fibers that raise, then STAIN AGAIN evenly, let dry and finish with two coats lacquer...

Say what you will but this has worked for us for two + years now.We are a production shop and I needed a way to stain pine without all the hassle, This stain did the trick for us.

Oh, and it works really great on hardwoods.

gwiz, good info! That is one thing I forgot is a good stain, I can't remember ever having any problem with pine. ( That doesn't mean anything!)

For us dummies what does BAC stand for in case there are folks like me that don't have a Sherwin Williams store and don't have the time to order it over the web?

Another thing does SW have a acrylic polyurethane?

[pkunk]

I use the SW KemAqua also in my shop. It is an acrylic and they call it a laquer because it melts into the preceding coats and it dries fast. Much better than a Polyurathane.

[skeeterman]

thanks for the info, will try to implement some of these ideas today
thanks steve

[DocWheeler]

I tried Googling both spellings and came up short, could someone tell me which one is correct?

[AskBud]

http://oem.sherwin-williams.com/us/eng/products/sherwood_kem_aqua_lacquer/
AskBud

[Shawnf2]

I use pine in my carvewright most of the time I use minwax pre-stain conditioner to seal the wood and it stains great and even no blotching the preconditioner seals the wood.
Shawn

[gwizpro]

Doc,

Try this in Google , comes up first with a PDF file . All the specs.

SHER-WOOD® KEM AQUA® Lacquer CC-F41

[gwizpro]

Minwax prestain is effective, but when you deal with the additional cost of the product in a production environment it adds up fast.
Plus the extra step in time, I guess for small projects it would be okay. But could you imagine having to do that to a set of pine cabinets.... Pre stain then stain. To me it is like , I think I will take a bath, then I will take a shower to get clean. Dang, sorry guys , in a mood today.....
Have a GREAT year so far........

[DocWheeler]

Thank you Bud and Tom, I must be having a bad day or something.
I hope it isn't a preview of 2010 for me!

Both of you have nice websites!
Tom, are you anywhere close to Al Who?

[Ike]

I use the SW KemAqua also in my shop. It is an acrylic and they call it a laquer because it melts into the preceding coats and it dries fast. Much better than a Polyurathane.
I like polyurethane because it generally does not have an amber tint and will not yellow white paint. Plus I am looking for an exterior application. I have exterior water based poly. I use that dries quickly. I am always looking other options.

Ike