staining woes with parawood
i bought a dining table and 6 chairs made out of unfinished parawood - the one that comes from plantations in malaysia. i stained them using an oil-based stain. the result were really blotchy especially on the chairs. i have 6 very different looking chairs!! i didnt preseal or apply a sanding sealer bcoz i was told that parawood is a very dense wood that stains well. i sanded to 220 grit b4 applying the stain. the 2nd coat didnt help at all. after 1 coat of thinned polyurethane i do not see any difference in the uneven tone of the wood. what shud i do to even out the color? i have 2 dark and 4 light toned chairs. will applying polyshades help even things out? i can try a darker shade than my current stain, to cover up the blotchiness. but b4 i do that i wanted to get expert advice help!!! thanks, nams I have bought and finished various unfinished pieces that I believe are made from the same type of wood. The only problem I had was it tended to stain light as it wouldn't obsorb as much stain as oak would. Usually 1 coat of stain is all that wood is given prior to sealing. Did you wipe the excess stain off after you applied it? Since polyshades is a tinted poly, it will darken or add color to what it is applied to. I'm not sure if I know what you mean by blotchy. If it is just different colors in the grain of the wood then tinted poly will help. If you have areas that have too much stain on them you might be better off stripping them and starting over. yes i did wipe off the stain b4 i coated the clear finish. i bought minwax polyshades in bombay mahogany but its really thick. and thats why its difficult to apply. can i thin it with mineral spirits? do i wipe it on with a foam brush? the 1st coat of polyshades tends to look pinkish. will the 2nd coat really bring out the color? thanks nams Polyshades can be tricky to apply so [if needed] it should be thinned so it can be applied evenly. It is ok to use mineral spirits. I never use foam brushes but instead use good bristle brushes [for oil base only]. The main thing is the poly needs to be applied evenly. Polyshades is clear poly with a little color added to it. If you have any lap marks [which means that area has 2 coats] they will have more color than the rest of the wood. Did you stir the polyshades well? Each coat will add a little more color to the finish. thanks for ur response i am a little disappointed with the results esp on the chairs. i want to start over. the problem is this is a very open grained wood and i dont know how a chmical stripper wud work on it. any ideas? thanks namrata Think about washing them off with acetone, protect your hands of course. let dry lightly sand them with 220 , and maybe entertain the idea of using a gel stain by Woodkote I would apply the stain using a technique called dry brushing. It lets you move the stain where you want and where you don't . let the stain dry.then finish as you would with any oil based product. I'd for get the Polyshade idea. stripper is a harsh way to go , look at my above post, and if you wanted to to a little more to some color out give them a bath with warm water and TSP. dry and then move on....you'll never get all the color out and return to square one , you can only proceed with damage control.....Good luck ! Definitely to fix this, I agree - acetone and then sand after it dries. And anytime staining parawood, use gel stain. Woodcaft has some really good gel stain. And as a side note, rule of thumb is never switch brands half way through either (I know you didn't do that - just for anyone else reading this) - i.e. pre-treat, stain and then seal all with the same brand, start to finish, whatever the brand is. One other tip - don't sand with any grey sanding media. I used a grey sanding sponge, and I wound up with what looked like white chalky powder under the polyurethane. I had to sand down, acetone, re-stain and re-coat - ARGHHH. Stick with the orange/yellow or tan sand papers. Welcome to the forums wspier! There shouldn't be any problem switching brands of poly as long as they are of the same base [all oil base or all waterbased] It is natural for white dust to be a by product of sanding. As long as you remove the sanding dust prior to applying the next coat of poly, it shouldn't be a problem. I routinely use the sanding sponges on most any poly'd surface that isn't flat and have never had any issues. We are finishing a dining room set in parawood. Since we wanted to make sure to get the result we were looking for we tested the underside of the table first. After buying and testing two Minwax oil stains, two Minwax Polyshades and a Minwax gel stain we did not like any of the results (and we pre conditioned the wood also). Frustrated I went searching online and came across positive comments for General Finish gel stain. After traveling 45 minutes to buy the gel stain in Java I am so happy with the result and ease, well worth the additional cost. The unfinished furniture store employee said to sand with 150 and DO NOT pre condition the wood, WOW the dining room set looks AWSOME! One coat will do it but we are going to apply a quick second coat before doing the top coat. We are also going to apply the General Finish gel top coat in the satin finish. I am so Happy with the result I will only use General Finish for future projects. I am already looking at other unfinished pieces to work on. Welcome to the forums Grammie! While I've done my share of staining/finishing over the years I don't recall ever using any 'general finish' products but for the most part they all work the same. Generally it isn't a good idea to apply a 2nd coat of stain. Interior wood stains rely a lot on absorbtion to dry [they aren't formulated with a lot of drying agents] Because of this, it can be difficult for a 2nd coat of stain to dry. Often when applying the 1st coat of sealer/poly [over multiple coats of stain] the solvents in the poly will rewet and move some of the stain around. An oil base poly/varnish will darken the natural colors that are in the stain and wood. Waterbased polys don't change the wood color any, they also don't dry to as hard a finish as their oil base counterpart You can't get ever wood dark enough when you use wood conditioner, so if it wasn't getting dark enough that was the whole problem. It seems that since this wood does contain sap in the form of latex, it's possible that this is what is responsible for the inconsistent color. Like it's already unevenly preconditioned? So don't some woods benefit from a wipe down with solvent before staining? I had to add unfinished furniture feet my parawood bed frame (already stained from the factory) to make it taller. I had to match the color of the bed frame to the feet. I used generals water based stain (and water based finish). Water based stains in this brand has more color pigment. Since I stained it dark (brown mohogony and rosewood), I DID NOT use a conditioner. I bought these colors to intermix to get the color I wanted. Since I was a hair colorist in a beauty salon this helped me get the results I wanted. The results were beautiful. If I were staining a lighter color, I would have used a conditioner, as the conditioner will soak in the wood. My husband has stained furniture in the past, and he couldn't believe my results. He never intermixed his stains!!!
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