My 10-year-old son and I have been building a desk for him. It is his first woodworking project. We built it with Southern Yellow Pine and joined it using pocket holes with wood glue. We also had portions of the desktop that we used stainable wood filler. It was sanded down to #220 grit (#60, #120, #180, #220) using an orbital sander. Minwax Oil Stain recommended sanding to #220,. Last night we vacuumed the desk then wiped it down with a damp cloth. After it had dried we stained it with Minwax Ipswich Pine 221 oil stain using clean cloths. We did not use a wood conditioner. Unfortunately, the first coat of stain is much lighter than expected. We would like it to be darker. I am concerned that it was over sanded. What should be our next step (add a different stain darker color, sand off the first coat and start over, sand between coats, etc.)?
We plan to finish with 3-4 coats of Polyurethane and Finishing Wax after drying. Thanks for any advice you can offer. I have attached a couple of pictures pre-stain and post-stain (first coat).
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It looks great. If it were me, I'd leave it as is. But darker is easy. Oil stains are pretty forgiving -- lighter is hard. Another coat of the same stain will make it darker. If you want a much darker color, it might be best to use a darker stain. I dislike using more than two coats of stain on something. Too many coats is blech.
Southern yellow pine is fairly dense and pitchy. Stain doesn't absorb too readily. If you put that same stain on eastern white pine, it would be much darker.
Are you going to use oil or water based poly? Oil based will darken the wood more, but water based won't.
Nice desk! You used pine stain to stain pine. Oddly enough, it looks just like pine!
Without the wood conditioner or other light sealer your results adding a coat of darker stain will be unpredictable. The first coat has sealed it up a bit and it could go streaky color-wise. Test on the underside before trying it on that wonderful top.
I'm surprised there's no blotching. Count your blessings.
You can always apply another coat of a darker stain, but realize the more you mess with it, you risk messing it up.
You could use more of a toning finish for a top coat... Say one of the poly+stain finishes from the big box store (but make sure if you used oil stain, you use oil based, same for water based).
One nice thing about these stain and poly mixes is they cover very evenly and you don't get much blotchiness (as mentioned above). But, they do cover with color rather quickly...
I don't want to step on toes, but I hate the poly+stain finishes. They obscure the wood to various degrees. They are paint that pretends to not be paint.
I paint a lot of woodwork. I have no problem with paint, at all. But for anyone that wants wood to look at all natural, avoid it. That tabletop above looks great. Finish will darken it some more. And time will darken it even more.
Looks good the way it is. Your kid will have it covered in paper and other stuff within an hour Of moving it to his room so you aren’t going to ever see the top again anyway.
I’d stick with three coats water or oil based poly. Test first.
I’ve started not waxing desktops. I found over time oil and dirt from bare forearms leaning on the desk edge got stuck into the wax and it is hard to clean off. It could be the water base poly I used as one desk with a shellac and wax finish did not show as much, but the user of that desk rarely wore short sleeve shirts so not sure.
Mike
Keep in mind, using a water based finish over an oil based stain requires a longer wait time than if you are putting oil based poly over oil stain.
It works just fine, but you MUST allow the oil stain to dry thoroughly. Minwax says 72 hours. If it was me, I'd wait a week, to be dertain.
I'm with John_C2 on the poly stain finish. Another option is a gel stain, I have used those in the past with great results. Get a scrap board, put the original stain on it, then put on the gel stain and see what you think. Since the first coat is oil based I would continue using oil based gel stain to keep things simple
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