I’m looking for some advice or suggestions on methods to finish/stain some curly red oak to make the figure stand out.
Should I try regular oil stains, or dyes to do this. I’ve never finished any higly figured wood so far.
thanks.
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Replies
What is being made with this red oak? Can you describe what kind of appearance you hope to achieve?
We don't know the usage of this red oak, but I'll try to mention a few ideas. First, I would not use an ordinary "stain" which includes a pigment. The pigment will concentrate in the pores and emphasize that kind of grain structure, but do only a little to emphasize the figure. Dye won't emphasize the pores, just applied as usual won't do much for the figure. HOWEVER, an application of dye will penetrate more deeply where the figure swirls up so that if you first dye, and then sand the surface you will leave more color in the figure.
One coat BLO is also recommended to enhance figure--it does penetrate and because of the ambering effect and because it adds a bit of translucence to wood fibers . This would complement a dye/sand beginning. You do have to be careful with oil or red oak since if you soak the surface, you may have oil seeming out of the pores for hours and hours.
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