Replies

1. 
   saulgood | Dec 18, 2005 08:43pm | #1

   Hey,

   I'm not the perfect guy to answer your question - in fact I'm in the same boat as you; red oak ply with a solid faceframe. I'm anticipating similar problems myself but I haven't tried yet... have you already applied your stain to the piece, or are you working with test samples? either way, I've found that water based stains and dyes tend to stain deeper, while oil hits a limit. Also, I wonder if you can get a darker effect on the ply by wet sanding it with more stain. I don't know what your sanding schedule was, but you may need to go back down in grit to make this work.

   If it doesn't, I know that gel stains can be built up to achieve darker layers where you want it. Hopefully (for both of us), someone wiser will suggest a better solution.

   Now, can I ask you something? The finished piece I'm trying to match has very distinct grain, dark against the reddish stain. I was thinking along the lines of a dark sealer, like you described. Have you tried putting it on first, before the stain? Or would that further limit the stain's ability to darken? Saul

1. 
   nofear | Dec 18, 2005 09:56pm | #3

   No right now I'm working on small samples, but I'm basically ready to start finishing. Wet sanding? I'm not sure what that is. I've done the grain raising bit, where I wet the wood, let it dry, then sand off the fuzz.Yeah I've done various variants on achieving the look. One thing I will mention, is that if your sealer is oil based and your dye water based, it wont work directly on top (the oil repels the water) ;-) Plus I've read elsewhere on this site, that it's best to put your dye on bare wood. Shellac in between the two will probably give you a different look.Thanks for the feedback.
   Matt

1. 
   saulgood | Dec 19, 2005 07:01pm | #11

   Nofear, I just got another Idea, maybe it can help. A client of mine once wanted to stain a VG fir door in a dark maroon, but I couldn't get anything to go dark enough with any control. I ended up using an HVLP sprayer and an airbrush to apply several coats of "Polyshades" stain/sealer by minwax. Its basically a tinted polyurethane, not really a "stain", but it can be built up pretty fast to achieve progressively darker coats. I guess you'd want to seal all surfaces first to create a uniform palate (I can't remember what I did). BTW for polyurethane, it was pretty good stuff - The door was exterior, and several years later its still looking great. P.S. By "wet sanding", I just meant sanding with your highest grit while working in the liquid stain. But now that I consider what's going on with the glue/veneer, I'm not so sure it would work very well.

2. 
   Paul_Snyder | Dec 18, 2005 09:30pm | #2

   I like to combine dye with stain and/or glaze to overcome the differences in the way solid wood and veneers accept stains. By applying the color in layers, the result will be more consistent with added depth and highlights.

   Work up some samples using your dye AND stain together. You may need to dilute the dye to avoid the final color being too dark. First dye the wood and let it dry. Then either apply the stain directly over the dye or first seal the wood with a thinned coat of finish (e.g., 1/2 cut of shellac), let it dry, sand it very lightly to smooth, and then apply the stain. Sealing the dye before staining will act as a barrier between the two and can improve the highlights and look of depth in the final finish.

   Paul
   http://www.finishwiz.com

1. 
   nofear | Dec 18, 2005 09:59pm | #4

   Paul thanks for the follow up. I'm starting some tests as you mentioned. Hopefully this will let it achieve the same color. One thing I was thinking, is maybe I need to add more dye to the veneer and less to the solid wood. Making in turn the dye almost the same colors. I'll try both and see what I can come up with.
   thanks
   Matt

1. 
   Paul_Snyder | Dec 19, 2005 03:36am | #5

   Adding color selectively to different areas isn't that easy Matt. It's not so bad if you're spraying, but it's a lot harder by hand. Usually you can dye the solid and veneer a light to medium shade which ties them together well. Then when you stain or glaze over the dye they come together even better.I'd test it out on solid AND veneer to make sure it looks good.Paul
   http://www.finishwiz.com

1. 
   saulgood | Dec 19, 2005 10:14am | #6

   Paul, you mention that achieving a blend is "not so bad" if spray equipment is used. Can you elaborate? (specifically, what finish would you spray, what other products might be involved, and in what sequence? thanks.

1. 
   Paul_Snyder | Dec 20, 2005 02:11am | #12

   Take a look at this link Saul - http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Staining_and_Blending_Difficult_Woods.htmlSpraying finishes opens a wide range of techniques that are much more difficult or down right impossible to duplicate using hand applied methods. By applying dye with a spray gun for example, you can selectively shade entire sections of a large unit or narrow streaks of sapwood on a small box. Spraying dye allows you to keep adding color without changing the dye strength, where applying it by hand has it's limits. Then there's the ability to add some dye or stain to your finish and spray that over a sealed surface (toner). It's basically what you were doing when you sprayed the Polyshades.Paul
   http://www.finishwiz.com

2. 
   nofear | Dec 20, 2005 05:38pm | #13

   Paul thanks for the article. That helps out a lot. I'll have to do more reading on what I can actually spray and what I can't. For instance can I spray cut shellac or only Lacquer etc.. etc.. Thanks again.

3. 
   Paul_Snyder | Dec 20, 2005 11:05pm | #14

   If it's liquid and will go through the spray gun, it can be sprayed. The only limitation I'd place on that is that some stains will change color when you spray them versus apply them by hand. It's because the force of spraying/atomizing separates/shears the pigments that are ground together. Minwax Red Mahiogany is one stain that comes to mind that has this limitation.Shellac produces a nice finish when sprayed. It takes a little practice to maintain a wet edge and avoid dry spray/overspray because it dries so fast. And you don't want to get it too thick so it doesn't craze pre-maturely. A few coats of a 1.5# - 2# cut is a good target.
   Paul
   http://www.finishwiz.com

4. 
   saulgood | Dec 23, 2005 03:07am | #15

   Paul,
   Thanks for the excellent article - I'll be keeping that one in my files.
   I have a question regarding spraying inside corners (you mentioned this in your text). I've used airless sprayers to paint interiors and I remember that the corners always came out light - as if there was a vortex which "protected" them from the spray. My current project features cabinets which obviously have areas where 3 corners all come together (two sides plus top). The good news is that they won't be seen much in practical usage, but I'd still like to avoid a bad result As you know, once you've made the call to spray, going in by hand is highly undesireable.
   You said in your article that lower pressure is the key. By reducing pressure as much as will still atomize the finish, can I get good results? Or should I consider using a small artist's airbrush for the corners alone?

3. 
   ring | Dec 19, 2005 12:20pm | #7

   nofear,

   You've got lots of options regarding how to "fix" the current dilemma, so I'm going to leave that aspect alone.  Just wanted to point out where the problem probably comes from in the first place, and maybe make it easier the next time around.

   Since oak is a very porous wood, the glue of the veneering process gets taken up into the veneer.  It sometimes even bleeds right out through to the outside.  But even without any visual evidence it sets up a barrier to any further finish that depends on the wood's absorption capacity, like stains and dyes.  The result is that your veneer reacts differently from the solid hardwood which it matched perfectly beforehand.  Oak is notorious for this.

   One way around it is to use adhesive that is pre-dyed to match approximately the final color that you are going for.   A better solution is to use the thickest veneer you can get.  But if you're aware of the problem, you're already ahead of the game.

   good luck with the fix,

   DR

1. 
   nofear | Dec 19, 2005 03:07pm | #8

   DR, when you say use adhesive that is pre dyed, what are you actually meaning?Yes I agree the overall issue now is that the veneer cannot absorb (glue, steam etc..) any further dye, which is what is causing the issue. Unfortunately I did not realize this when selecting my dye's and doing my test strips with solid wood.Thanks for any help.

1. 
   ring | Dec 19, 2005 04:07pm | #9

   I mean simply that you can add dye to the adhesive that is used to glue up the veneer.  I recently had to prepare some 150 sheets of oak veneer over MDF that would be stained a dark gray in the final finish of the cabinets.   We added black dye to the adhesive so that any bleeding through would blend in with the final color.  In this project the veneering was sub-contracted out, but if you are doing the veneering yourself it is easy to control.   Assuming for example that your adhesive is water-soluble, buy a concentrated dye meant for tinting water-borne lacquer, and start adding it to the adhesive until it more or less matches the final finish color.  The chemists out there will probably protest that one can only add such-and-such % without harming the adhesive, but in my experience it has not noticably affected the gluing properties.

   On any tight-grained species this problem does not even come up, but with oak it certainly does.  If you cannot get around the problem on this project, maybe it would be best at this point to forgo the penetrating stain altogether and tint the lacquer.  Experiment, experiment...

   DR

1. 
   nofear | Dec 19, 2005 04:26pm | #10

   Ok, thanks for the tip. We will give that a shot. Yes this seems like one big science lab, with chemicals and beakers and measuring equipment ;-) But it definitely is fun. Test test test