Pre-stain solutions?

[Russell Tribby]

For the past year or so I've used Charles Neil's blotch control product as a prestain conditioner. While I've been relatively pleased with the results, on larger projects it adds a substantial amount of time to the finishing process. Instead of a three step process (apply, sand, apply second coat and possibly light sand again) I would like to be able to stick with a one step process before applying stain. Based off of a friend's recommendation I tried applying a coat of SW clear stain base as a conditioner. I followed that with SW BAC wiping stain. While it helped with blotching it didn't provide the results I was hoping for. I primarily use alder for stained projects and while it didn't necessarily blotch much there was a consistent amount of uneven grain showing through...I guess you could call it blotching. I've used wash coats of shellac in the past with some success but don't like how much it inhibits the coloring of the wood. I have a sample of my friend's work and the coloring on it is very even without much of the black spotiness of the grain showing through. It almost looks like the even coloring you get with toning but with subtle grain showing through. What products/processes is everyone else using?

[Scott Holmes]

If you are working with alder... skip the pre-stain conditioner and use dye instead of stain.


Practice on a few pieces of scrap.

The pictures of the kitchen in photo album (on this site) is alder sprayed with Transtint med brown dye.

[Russell Tribby]

Scott, what album are you referring to?
Was the transtint mixed with water or dna?

[Scott Holmes]

Dye was mixed with DNA and sprayed... about 4500 sq ft of alder was finished in that house. You can get to it by clicking on my mane then going to profile and you should see the albums...

here's the link: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/album.php?albumid=348

[Russell Tribby]

Scott, I've never sprayed dye or stain, I've always wiped it on and off. How much will spraying affect the absorption of the pigment?

[Prashun Patel]

Russell, Scott's talking about dye stains - not pigment stains. Dyes tend to penetrate more evenly than pigment counterparts. There are a lot of good reasons to learn to use dye stains, IMHO.

My typical coloring regimen (I'm not a pro) is to sand to 220, spray with dye diluted in ethanol, spray 1.5# shellac to seal the dye, sand, topcoat.

If you want to get fancy, you can add a pigment stain, or gel pigment stain after shellac or in between top coats. You can layer colors this way. I found it effective if you are going for something really dark, but want a warmer tone underneath.

[Scott Holmes]

I agree with Prashun on all but one point:

" ... diluted in ethanol, spray 1.5# shellac to seal the dye, sand, topcoat."

Sanding before the first top coat or two can cause you to sandthrough, removing some of the color... not a pretty sight.I don't usually sand until after the second top coat.

Spraying dye takes a bit of practice; DNA dye dries very fast and overlaps will show on very dark colors. Spraying water soluble dye is a bit more forgiving and the water only soluble dyes are more colorfast (cheaper too).

Practice on scrap from your project; prep it the same way you plan to prep your project.