Choosing the right stain is an important decision. You certainly do not want to ruin your project, wasting precious time and money and you especially don’t want to end up with a product that you do not like. Here, we’ve compiled a few tips to help you get it right the first time. How your color turns out depends on a lot of things, so following these steps will help you to end up with the best color possible for your project.
1) Get several small pieces of scrap wood to test your stains on. Using scrap pieces of wood from your actual project is best. Sand down the wood the same exact way that you would or have sanded your project. You want to make the scrap piece as close to the finished product as possible.
2) Apply different stains exactly as you plan to apply them to your project. If you’re not sure if you will be rubbing in the stain or brushing it on, try each stain with both methods on each side of your wood scraps. Test the raw edges to make sure that you are getting the results that you want on the entire piece.
3) Soft woods, like pine, can sometimes turn out blotchy. Using a wood conditioner will help you to avoid this problem and get your color to a truer shade than without the conditioner. Try staining your scraps with or without the conditioner until you get the desired color and absorption.
4) Finish the scraps with the clear coat or varnish that you plan to finish your project with. This will help you to determine how the color will actually look when you’re done. Sometimes wood grain and those types of details will not show up very well until you varnish. Stained wood without a shiny coat can look very flat and dull. Don’t dismiss a color until you’ve completed the process.
5) Make sure that you label each piece that you test so that you can recreate your favorite look. Write down exactly what you did, including the grit of sandpaper, amount of stain, brand, color, application method, and finishing method.
6) If your project isn’t made from all the same types of wood, you will need to stain more than one sample. If you used something like pre-made wood trim, wooden balls, a wood dowel rod or hardwood dowel, make sure that you test them separately to compare.
7) The last step is to check out your finished product in the same lighting that you plan to use it in. Compare it to paint colors in the room and see if it looks as nice in the room’s lighting as you had hoped. Following these steps will help you to create the piece that you imagined.
About the Author: Dave Murphy is the founder and president of Good Wood, Inc., which makes a high quality wood dowel and the best hardwood dowel on the market. They also create wooden balls, wood knobs, wooden toy parts, custom wood parts, and more. They offer safe wood finishing, wood turning and can import from off-shore when necessary. Visit http://www.goodwoodinc.com for all of your wood product needs.
