Stain recommendation
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Guys, I typically like a natural finish, but I am making a planter bench in pine that I want to stain a cherry color.
I bought some cheap miniwax stain from Lowe’s and tested it on a piece of scrap and I think it looks awful. Can anyone recommend a cherry stain that will look nice on pine furniture?
Thanks.
Jay, is the bench for outside? I remember Greg Merritt did a milk paint stain/wash on a table that looked nice. I don’t know how milk paint would do outside though.
Found his project topic. https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/discussions/topic/dop-leaf-table-build/
Jay, I’m sure Greg will respond but I think it was a diluted version of the paint. The nice thing about milk paint is that you don’t need a Haz-Mat suit to mix and apply it :). If you haven’t used milk paint before it is an excellent way to finish if you want to paint and color a project. There’s a bunch of people on the forums who have done projects using milk paint. I recently finished a little step stool in barn red milk paint and top coated with poly. Sorry for my rant on milk paint 😉
I remember Paul using a dye mixed in with shellac to finish a saw handle and it looked good. I say a Dye because I think it’s a different animal than a stain and can be mixed into shellac to add color.
28 October 2014 at 11:11 pm #120292Yep, the base on that table is pine with a barn red milk paint stain. There is nothing complicated about the process. Mix the milk paint, the powder not that pre-mixed stuff, with more water than normal, a lot more water. I slopped it on with a rag and kept adding stain until I achieved the color that I wanted. The last stroke with the rag should be with the grain. Let it dry. Don’t panic. It will be dead flat and a little rough to the touch. Buff with 0000 steel wool or fine sandpaper. I top coated with shellac, but you will want something that stand up to be outside I think. The standard disclaimer applies as always…do up a test piece to verify it’s what you want and compatibility with your chosen top coat. I’m looking at that table right now and if I didn’t know better I would swear the whole thing was made with cherry.
Hope that helps a little.
Yeah, I have used milk paint… in fact, the black paint on my big tool chest was milk paint, fine sanded and then a finishing oil. I did a couple things in a gray milk paint as well.
I think Greg’s finish does look good… I suppose I wanted to experiment with some new stuff, being new to all of this. If I were going to milk paint this bench, I would probably just do the whole thing white.
I need to think on all of this. 🙂
Thanks for the replies and suggestions.
Problem with pine is that it is extremely difficult strain without being blotchy. My brother was able to stain pine nicely with a walnut colored Danish oil, but even then he pretreated the pine a strain pretreater. The other issue is what colors go well staining pine and that will have to bee trial and error.
29 October 2014 at 12:44 pm #120312You need to seal pine with a very thin coat of shc. 1lb cut thin it a littel and rub it down with oooo wool. Then the stain
Good luck
FrankjI am a little late on my recommendation but I just tried a new product on the six christmas totes.
I used Cabot water-based one step stain and finish on pine from Lowes, I live in Canada they are the only store that carries a water based one-step product. The product dried really quickly and the results were fantastic no prep work I did sand the end grain to 220 grit to improve the results on the end grain. This stuff doesn’t smell like the minwax oil based finish and clean up is just soap and water. I applied with a brush. I find it doesn’t create the blotching effects on pine. However you could experience what Paul would call lap marks. Treat this product like coloured shellac following the wet edge but with the advantage of being about to go over what you already did to even out brush strokes.http://www.cabotstain.com/products/product/Premium-Wood-Finish.html
This is the companies link to the product. The reviews explain some of the issues people have. For me it is my new favourite method to stain pine.
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