I hate staining wood. There, I said it. I find it to be the most difficult aspect of finishing and all too often it simply looks like stained wood, I dislike the colors that look like they didn't grow there or belong on a tropical hardwood, and the results I have achieved so far have been less than stellar in comparison to simply getting a blank with color I like from the start.

So, the genesis of this is that I am stocking a gun for a friend with a piece of turkish walnut that he has had for a few years purchased from a well known wood dealer...nice and dense, good straight grain in the wrist that went all smoky and wavy into the butt, and this gorgeous rich "light-molasses" color not unlike my favorite IPA.
In prep for sending this off to the duplicator, I cut a piece off the butt of the blank to have on hand to plug the hollow butt later on...and discovered that the wood underneath (both sides and the edges were finished and the ends were waxed) was much lighter colored than I expected. I took some of the finish off the scrap, rubbed on a fresh coat of finish and lo and behold the rich brown color was GONE, to be replaced with a nice enough but rather plain looking tan color sort of like what I'd expect from the stereotypical california wood--nice enough, but not what my friend was after.

So, I am playing with some stains on the scrap to see what I can concoct.

First, is there a finish that someone might have used that would have given this color in only a few years? It appeared to be some sort of urethane finish (it's quite built up and I can't imagine anyone putting enough time into an oil finish on a square blank to build up BLO or the like), but the color was much darker than the wood underneath. It seems kind of shady to sell blanks that are stained to look different than they really are--is it likely to be just a darkened finish or amber coloring from a spar varnish or something on a 10 year old blank?

Assuming I will need to stain it to achieve the color he wanted:
I've tried minwax stains, and have never found an application technique for this stuff that I like, it seems to really muddy the wood and cause it to lose depth, color unevenly even when sealed, etc--anyone that uses this, how do you apply it, when, and what is the resulting look?

After going back and reading the alkanet root thread from a few years ago, I purchased some solar lux blood red and tried it both on unfinished and pore-filled wood. I love the way it evenly colors, but the color itself is kind of shockingly red or even pink...especially on the unfinished wood it looks unnatural to me and it's not at all what I'm after. I've read SDH's book where he says he applies on pore-filled wood and topcoats over it, and from my very limited experiment tonight that appears to be the way to do it and it looks ok but not really "wow". I'm very interested in any tips or techniques other folks have found for this stuff--what % do you mix it with the solvent, do you mix colors at all (which colors and how much?), when do you apply this during the finishing process, etc.

Last, I tried some of the good-old birchwood casey water-based stain from china mart. It does raise the grain which is kind of a drag but so far this is the best color I have found, although I would prefer just a hint more reddish tone. Is there a solar lux color (or similar) that others use that has a color like I'm after?

Thanks for any thoughts or feedback.
Dave


Last edited by David Furman; 03/04/10 04:06 PM.