A Stain on Your Youse - The Parts You Want Stained

Published: April 30, 2020

When most people think of fine wooden furniture, shutters, or doors, they often picture a warm tan or reddish brown color over a surface with beautiful grain patterns. There is nothing more beautiful in the world than good woodwork (well, I think so anyway). For a lot of people it is a bit of a mystery where all that color and detail come from, given how, well, lets just say it, bland a lot of unfinished wood can look like. Some wood can look just great even sitting there on a workbench fresh, and untouched straight from a lumberyard. I always thought that Walnut had that kind of appeal. But, lets face it, most wood needs some help before it really starts to look beautiful. If you think that wood is improved on by a coat of paint, we have some articles to help you with that. This article is all about making the effort mother nature put into that wood shine. It's about exposing the flowing, swirling patterns of grain that only wood has, and the radiant, earthy tone that comes with it. What you want to see is stained wood.

Staining wood is not like painting wood, though there are some similarities in the process. With painting wood, you are covering the wood with a protective layer that will help preserve it and give it the color you want thanks to pigment in the paint. The pigment in the paint stays outside the wood. So if you strip off that paint, the color is gone, or should be. With Stain, what you are doing is putting the pigment directly into the wood itself. Stain soaks in deep enough to deliver a pigment that highlights and enhances what is already there in the wood by making it a bit darker. Paint is opaque, and does not let you see what is under it. Stains are transparent, and are all about bringing out what already exists in the wood.

Generally speaking though, stains are not protective like paint. Some stains do have protective qualities, there are an awful lot of different types of stains out there with different effects on your wood. Basically, though, stains just color the wood you are working with, they do not protect it. So, part of the process of using a stain will always be applying some sort of sealer, varnish, shellac, polyurethane, or some protectant to preserve both the wood and the stain you've applied. This process that finishes up your staining project by protecting it is called, appropriately, finishing. We tell it like it is in the woodworking business.

While finishing is an important part of the process of getting your door or shutter looking good,let's focus on the stain for now. Staining is something you want to get right. If you do not do your stain to your satisfaction, you might want to hold off on the finish. By saying that I do not mean to say that staining incorrectly will destroy your woodwork! Nothing is going to blow up if you Stain too much, but you might not like the color you get. Now that you have gone to the trouble of getting the best wooden doors and shutters in the business, that would be a shame.

Preparation

There are a couple of things to keep in mind about staining, and these are almost the same as in painting. One is that you want to stain in a well ventilated area. Stains typically (but not always) contain VOCs, Volatile Organic Compounds. These are chemicals that can do some great things for wood, but not so great things for people. VOCs are carbon-based solvents that get released into the air when Stains are used, and if the fumes containing them are too concentrated due to lack of ventilation they can cause dizziness and headaches, or worse. VOCs can contain a wide variety of chemicals, and the jury is still out on how bad heavy exposure to them can be long term, but you do want to keep children and pregnant women out of the immediate area when they are in use. Controlling your exposure to VOCs can be as simple as opening a window and keeping a fan going while you are staining. Wearing a mask is also a good idea. If you are not accustomed to working with VOCs, then consider shopping for a Stain that is light on VOCs or does not contain them at all. Or hire a professional that is accustomed to dealing with them.

Also our old friend sandpaper will be involved if you are staining. Sandpaper can clean wood and smooth imperfections, oh yes, but it can also open up the pores in wood to make it more receptive to a stain. This is particularly important when working with hardwoods, which we use here at the mill. The type of sandpaper you want to use before the stain will vary with the wood and the staining product you have decided on (always read the directions on that product, by the way, to see what the manufacturer recommends). In general, sand twice. Once with a slightly coarser grit (something like 150 to 180), and the go over it again with a finer grit (200 and higher). When it all feels as smooth as silk, you are ready. Remember to clean up that dust with a rag or, better yet, a shop vac, and keep your woodworking/painting mask on!

One other thing is important in staining, and that is testing. Get a piece of wood of the same type as your door or shutter, and experiment a little bit with the stain you want to use. Make sure you have the timing or the number of layers applied down right (depending on what product you are using). You want the end color to be right, after all. Wood can be pretty unpredictable. It's an organic thing, after all, and as much as we want our grown and farmed things to be neat and predictable, we all know that real life can be chaotic. Wood, too, can surprise you. To a degree that is part of the appeal of working with it, but that is also a challenge. So, test the stain you want to use before you dive into using it.

If you do not have spare wood to test, you can be sneaky and test the stain on the underside of the door or shutter you want to use. Folks dont usually care what the underside of a door looks like, they never see it. For a shutter its much the same, but be more careful, as folks can and do look up to shutters mounted high on a house. In that case, you might consider testing on the very top flat surface of the shutter, particularly if you are going to cover that part with a Copper Cap anyway (and that is very worthwhile to consider). Test only a small spot, follow the directions of the Stain's manufacturer, and see what it looks like. If you dont like it, remember you can always stain over it again once you do get the product or technique you like, and since you picked a spot nobody looks at it shouldn't be an issue (though that one spot will be darker than the rest). However, you should always test your stain on scrap wood first if at all possible.

Staining

When it comes to the actual staining, always follow the directions on the stain that you have chosen. Most stains will follow a pretty similar and simple process. After the cleaning, sanding, and clearing off the dust, you shake or stir the stain to get it ready. Put your painters mask and rubber gloves on, just to be safe. Then, simply apply it to the wood with a brush, usually in short, controlled swipes that applies a thick coat to the wood surface you are working on, going with the grain whenever you can. Think of it as a somewhat thick coat of paint, but here you do not need to make smooth strokes. You basically just want to make sure the stain is there covering the wood completely, without any bare patches. And unlike paint, you are not just going to leave the stain there!

A key to using any stain product is timing. Once a stain is applied, it begins to soak into the wood, and it's pigment starts collecting in the wood and giving it the nice effect you are looking for. The longer the stain sits on the wood, the more pigment soaks in. If you leave it there too long, it might color the wood more darkly than you intended.

After about 5 minutes, check how it looks by clearing off the stain on a small portion of the wood (just wipe it away completely with a rag from one small spot). If you like what you see, then you are done. wipe away all the stain from the wood with your handy rag.

Remember, this is not painting! Once the stain has colored the wood as you like it, you are going to wipe off that stain completely. It has done its job at this point, and needs to go so it does not keep darkening that wood.

If you do want a bit darker color, re-apply the stain to the spot you cleared away. You can do that by either brushing on more from your can of stain, or use a brush to just move stain from other areas of the wood to cover that clear patch. You should have painted it on thickly with this in mind. Wait another 5 minutes and check again. Once the color looks good, wipe away all the stain from everywhere you applied it. Then let the whole thing dry for about 8 hours.

Finishing

Once the stain has done its job, you'll want to consider using a finishing product to preserve that look you worked so hard to get. If this is for something that will be outside, like a wooden shutter, choose an outdoors grade finisher, and follow the directions. Staining itself takes about 5-20 minutes, but the Finish will have to last years, so be sure to follow those directions carefully. They are usually not difficult anyway, usually of the "apply and let dry" school.

Once this is all done, you will have a very handsome wood product indeed. There is nothing like a nice stained piece of woodwork to give any home that warm, rich glow that only real wood can bring. It sure beats the heck out of concrete and vinyl.