Replies

1. 
   Kevin | Jan 26, 2007 10:16pm | #1

   She wants it stained black or wants it to be black?

   In my experience a dilute black coloration from a black stain doesn't look black. It's sorta greyish along with whatever color the wood is.

   If she's wanting an ebonized look where it's black black but wants to see the surface texture of the grain then I would opt for the open grain of the Oak and use a thin black lacquer to get the wood totally black without filling in the open pores. There are several popular laminates which have this look - jet black with an Oak-ish grain texture.

   If she insists on it being stained and wants to totally black then I would still go with the Oak and use multiple coats of black dye until you achieve the saturation of color that she wants. Or perhaps prestain it with a black water-based wiping stain followed by a black dye once the grain is all open. Oak can be hard to stain super dark without resorting to a multi-step process of one sort or another.

   Either way, Oak is going to give you a much more distinct grain pattern than Poplar will.

   
   

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   Edited 1/26/2007 2:17 pm ET by Kevin

1. 
   DiggerDave | Jan 26, 2007 10:25pm | #2

   Thanks so much for the info.  I never thought about using black lacquer. Pardon my inexperience, but does lacquer go on just like paint or is there a special process to finish the piece?

   Thanks!

   David

1. 
   Kevin | Jan 27, 2007 12:31am | #3

   Black lacquer is a paint, often referred to as "pigmented lacquer". It will apply like any other paint with a few caveats. Most black lacquer is solvent based and is designed to be sprayed. So the lack of a spraygun would be a problem. There are brushable clear lacquers, but I've never heard of anyone marketing brushable pigmented lacquers. And of course there is the flamability factor with standard lacquer too. Even after it's cured out the dry lacquer film will burn very readily if you expose it to flame. But of course the same applies to normal clear lacquer as well.

   I've never used it and don't know much about it but... I seem to recall ForestGirl using some water-based black lacquer on a project a year or so ago. You might query her about it. She seemed quite pleased with it at the time, and of course it would not be as flamable as normal nitro lacquer is.

   Come to think of it... really just about any black paint would work, in theory. The key to making it look good would be to use as thin a layer as reasonably possible so that it doesn't fill in the wood grain and negate the point of using paint over stain in the first place. If you've got more experience using another type of paint which you think would meet your criteria, that might be easier and simpler than trying black lacquer. I would think that a glossier paint would look better than a less glossy paint because the shine would help highlight the wood pores. Although it wouldn't need to be full gloss necessarily. I would think that a semi-gloss would suffice.

   The one thing that I like most about regular black lacquer for this type of application is that, with a little experience using lacquers, it's probably the easiest way to acheive that ebonized look. Most certainly it's much much easier than trying to achieve it with black dye. I've tried that with success. But what a royal pain in the backside it was!

   Now if you are the adventuress type who likes the modern, less natural look... you can have a LOT of fun with Oak and an ebonized black finish by using some contrasting colored material, like a gel stain, to fill the pores after it's been painted. Clearcoat over the whole thing and it can look really spectacular, not to mention unique.