I am building a bathroom vanity out of white ash (for the doors and face frame) and red oak panelling for the side panels. I want to stain the wood a dark chocolate brown and have had some stain custom tinted to match a sample I have. The problem I am having is that I can’t get the white oak to absorb the stain to get it dark enough. I have tried putting on several coats and have even left coats of stain to dry completely before wiping them down. Even after drying completely over night when I put on a coat of varnish the stain loosens up and wipes right off. Any suggestions? Is white ash to hard to accept stain. Several articles I have read suggests that it should accept stain easily. Before I go ahead and start construction I want to get this problem solved in case I have to switch to a different species of wood. Any help would be appreciated.
Edited 7/4/2005 2:59 pm ET by Jambros
Replies
Jambros
I'm certainly no expert when it comes to finishing, but I've had luck 'ebonizing' lighter woods using transtint dye. You're not staining the wood, you're actually dying it, and I've made white maple look like ebony, instead of paying for the ebony at over 100 bucks a board foot. Available online at homesteadfinishing.com or at your local woodcraft store.
Jeff
Try a concentrated Van Dyke brown or walnut dye instead of stain. Then you might use stain with its pigments to fill in the colour in the open pores. After that you can tint the polish with spirit soluble dye to get the look you're after as long as you're using finishes compatible with them such as pre-cat or shellac, although spirit based dye will adjust the colour of oil based varnishes too.
But you are making it difficult to get a consistent end result by mixing white oak with red oak. They react differently to the same colouring techniques. Slainte.
RJFurniture
Thank you for your comments. However after reading my own message again I realized that I had made a mistake. I'm actually using white ash for the doors and face frames not white oak. The grain pattern in ash matches the red oak much closer and works better than the white oak. Sorry for the confusion.
I think its probably too late to use a water-based dye after you have tried the stain, which is oil-based, no doubt. A dark toned dye would be the way to go on raw wood to achieve the dark tone you want. An alcohol based dye might work, since it would perhaps cut through the oil pigment left on the wood from the stain. Just thinking out loud here...I'm not an authority on fixing these problems. Sorry
I got the impression from the first post that nothing was committed to stone, QS. Merely that stain had been custom mixed and that there was a problem getting red and white oak samples to match, which is tricky enough.
Now I discover that the mix of woods is red oak and ash, even trickier.
More and more I'm coming to the conclusion that the best colour match that can be applied easily is, er, well, dark brown paint, ha, ha. Slainte.RJFurniture
Jambros,
you don't say what type of stain you are using, but it sounds as though you are not using an actual stain-which to me is a solvent based item ,usually naptha or similar which you can either wipe or spray on tnen wipe off almost immediately. Both red and white oak , as well as ash,elm and others respond well to this type of stain-it must be a solvent based one, which dries in minutes and is not a surface coating.
If you have applied some sort of oilbased "stain" you will have to return to bare wood again to get a solvent stain to work-and work it does.
Hope that helps.
If you've never used potassium dicromate (sp?), try it on white oak-NOT red. It will give you a nice rich warm brown and will not hide the grain. Don't think it will do any good on your ash and I do not suggest you try it on red oak-turns ugly. You may not want to tackle this on this project but keep it in mind in the future. especially on mahogany and walnut.
Terry
If you cannot reverse the doors(inside out) and make new parts as needed, I recommend removing as much of the stain as possible with thinner first and then a stripper for the pores.
The only difference between staining and dyeing is the fineness of the pigment. Since you want a dark brown, this most easily hides any color differences and can be achieved with the dyes mentioned earlier, or stains. But as you've now discovered, one the pores have reached saturation, that's it. It's best to start with a dark color then wipe off if a lighter color is needed.
Thank you to everyone who has posted suggestions on how to deal with my staining problem. After experimenting on a variety of scrap pieces I was able to get the stain to set up the way I wanted. I applied a sanding sealer to the bare wood and then applyed the stain and let it sit for an hour after which I wiped it down and let it dry over night. Then I repeated the process two more time after which I achieved to color density that I was looking for. I applied this process to samples of white oak, white ash, red oak and just to test the density of the wood I did hard maple as well. Guess what, my wife likes the maple the best because she doesn't like the grain pattern of the oak as well. I am now switching to building the vanity and cabinets out of maple. Good thing I tested the stain before I started construction. Once again, thanks for all those who offered suggestions and ideas. There are few things I will try on future projects.
Jambros
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