Hi all–new to the forum. I’m attempting to match the finish on a 40’s era oak slat back library chair to six new reproductions I’m making out of Red Oak.I can get the general color using three coats of Chestnut oil pigment gel stain (wipe on). The problem is the dark color is causing too much contrast between the surface wood and pores. It looks as though the original chair has been sprayed with a dark toner resulting in the grain to be more like unfilled mahogany than oak.
I don’t have spray equipment so have been darkening wood color to get closer to pores by wipe on glazing between poly coats. Can see this will result in a totally filled plastic look finish (bad).
So, looking for a way to get dark stain with minimum contrast without using paste filler. If I could keep the amount of contrast seen in oiled natural oak but in the darker color with a minimum to steps to keep all chairs consistant that would be ideal. This does not need to be an exact match to the original (the original is hiding the grain making it look muddy).
Yes, I am testing on samples! Will dye stain give me what I want? Looking forward to your input!—Bruce
Replies
Welcome to Knots, k9s.
My first choice would be to fume it with ammonia. Red oak does not responde to fuming quite as well as white oak, but it certainly looks good to the eye.
Second choice would be water based dye in van Dyke brown.
Many prior posts on fuming oak are in the archives - try a search.
Lee in Cave Junction, Oregon
Gateway to the Oregon Caves
I'll throw out my wet sanding suggestion again here. It became my finishing technique of choice for some display cases built out of red oak. I did not want that stark contrast between the pores and the rest of the wood. You can wet sand using a lighter colored stain or even a neutral or clear for the first two thin coats. The slurry will settle in the pores and help keep them from taking on the darker color of a later coat.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Thanks for the replys!
I'll try all three methods. I've got the time, these are the first chairs I've made so its slow going.
--Bruce
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