At wit's end with Varathane "fast dry premium stain"

[Jake Elkins]

Seeking advice from the pros here. Sorry, long post, but . . .

I am finishing up a series of projects involving the entire upper floor of our home, including flooring, some cabinets, quite a bit of custom made molding, off-the-shelf trim, crown, paneling (all red oak), etc. Basically, the final step is finishing all the trim and install. The wife liked the idea of a very dark brown stain. After spending what seems like a fortune getting samples, we converged on Varathane "fast dry" premium stain, with a color called Kona. Fine. Stained all the plywood, applied some wipe-on oil-based poly after a couple of days, and it turned out fantastic (per SWMBO). Great. Next, after sanding for days all the solid wood trim, I followed the same schedule. After the stain, the wood took a great, rich dark color. Seemed dry to touch, not tacky at all. Applied the wipe on poly, and it just rubbed the finish nearly off. At best, with very gentle application, there were some serious streaks. I thought it might be acceptable, so I completed all the oak with this. The end result is horrible and not acceptable, so I tried to sand off the stain, etc with to no avail. It was worth it to me to get this right. So I bought a lot of replacement trim, sanded and stained again, and waited now two weeks before I touched it with the poly. The results were almost worse: the dark stain just wiped off. I tried some brush on poly, which worked a little better, but not great. So, back to getting even more trim (fortunately I have not ruined my custom-made work). I've got it sanded, but I am a little gun-shy about trying something new and spending even more money with this seemingly easy task. My ideas are
1. Use a water-based poly (limited experience)
2. buy a sprayer, and spray finish (this would require some purchases that I hope to avoid and I have little experience with spraying)
3. Follow the sage advice from someone here and do something else

I don't think I can use a new stain, since all the panels are already up, and look great with this Kona color.

Been doing trim work, and the like for 15 years, and never had a problem like this. Have used Varathane and poly together, albeit not the "premium fast dry variety" together for even longer. Anybody have any ideas? They would be greatly appreciated.

tldr: oil-based stain and oil-based poly worked great on oak plywood, horrible on solid wood trim. Ideas?

Thanks

[Mike Monroe]

Stain, then seal with wax-less shellac. Lightly sand the shellac. Apply the topcoat.

Interesting that the poly didn't pull the stain from the oak plywood.

[John TenEyck]

I'm guessing you didn't wipe off the stain very well. Per the MSDS for that product it contains 15% resin binder which isn't a lot and if you left a lot on the surface it may not be enough to prevent a wiped on varnish with a common solvent from lifting it off. If this sounds correct you have a couple of options.

1) Sand to a coarser grit than you did before, wait longer for the stain to absorb, and then wipe it off completely. The coarser sanding and longer wait time should help keep a really dark color. Let that dry at least 72 hours before topcoating.

2) Prep. as you did before, wait 72 hours after staining and then spray the surface with rattle can shellac. Then apply your wiped on topcoat. The shellac will seal the stain and prevent the varnish from redissolving it.

Or you could call Varathane and see what their take is on what happened.

Whatever you do, do it on scraps until you are satisfied it works.

John

[Myk Rian]

Seeking advice from the pros here. Sorry, long post, but . . .

Yeah, long thread. Use paragraphs and I might read it.

[Phil Thien]

IMHO: Water-based stains lift easily, they need to be sealed with a sprayer before any attempt at a brushed/padded/ragged top coat is made.

[Curt Harms]

I agree with the consensus, a barrier coat (dewaxed shellac, SealCoat is a brand name) between the stain and top coat. Trying to match plywood and solid wood can be a challenge too.

[Scott Holmes]

I would not sand the shellac... way too easy to go through and remove the color. Give it a few coat (3+) of wipe-on finish before you sand it.

Another option is to use dye... I find dyes are the easiest way to match colors when working with different types of wood but wanting a uniform color. Take s a bit of practice; you can match any color.

[John TenEyck]

IMHO: Water-based stains lift easily, they need to be sealed with a sprayer before any attempt at a brushed/padded/ragged top coat is made.

Phil, that stain is oil based or at least the MSDS I looked up said it was, assuming I looked up the correct one. Alkyd resin binder.

John

[Phil Thien]

Phil, that stain is oil based or at least the MSDS I looked up said it was, assuming I looked up the correct one. Alkyd resin binder.

John

Oh you're right (of course). I don't know why I thought that was water based, I have seen the stuff at Menards and knew it was oil. Huh.

Sorry for obfuscating things!

[Jake Elkins]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
I went to the local Borg, and found Zissner shellac in a spray can. It makes no mention whether it is de-waxed or not. There seems to be no consensus on this or other forums of whether the spray contains wax, even though it is the "Bullseye" variety. No mention on the website, either. I am hesitant to use the wipe-on variety given my troubles with wiping on a clear finish previously.
Is this spray shellac de-waxed and OK to use prior to poly?

[Scott Holmes]

The aerosol can of Zinsser Shellac is DE-WAXED. If you read the fine print on the back of the can you will find where it says 100% dewaxed.

[Jake Elkins]

Just an update on my finishing conundrum. I move slow, so I just completed the finishing for all this trim. I used the Varathane premium stain, after sanding w/ 80 and 120 grit. Let stand 2.5 days, and tried an experiment with three boards. For one, I used the De-waxed rattle-can shellac. On a second, I sprayed Spar urethane, and for the third, nothing. I waited another day, and applied Varathane semi-gloss water-based poly on all three with a foam brush. What I observed was absolutely no removal of the stain for any of the three boards. They looked identical. The stain didn't even smear, which I have actually became accustomed to (and in fact use as a technique to even out some areas if needed when using oil-based stain). I finished the remaining 60-or-so pieces of trim with just the water-based poly without pre-treatment. I applied four coats, with just a very light sanding between.
This is my first time using the water-based, and I think if has pros and cons. I think an immediate con is that the finish is not very durable, and the 'light sanding' between coats often resulted in scratches if not careful. I also feel that the four coats was necessary to get the same depth that I would have gotten with just a couple coats of the regular polyurethane, so I spend about double the time applying. The trim will be in a high traffic area, so I hope the finish holds up. The big advantage, of course, was not ruining several hundred dollars of trim, and getting a horrible headache from the fumes. And I find it interesting that it did not pull up any of the stain. After four coats and several hundred feet of trim, the dipping can of the poly remained a stable milk-white.
I still do not know what went wrong with the initial attempts. Maybe a bad batch of stain? I don't know, but I was too chicken to see if an oil poly would reproduce the same disastrous results.

[John Adank]

My brother ran into similar issues using the same exact stain in Cognac. After staining, he applied the Oil based polyurethane and the stain came off. He also experienced blotching on the red oak. He ended up sanding down to the bare wood and applying the Varathane water based sanding sealer this time before staining. After the stain had dried, he applied the oil based poly and had much better results.

i also tried the sanding sealer on red oak before using the Varathane stain but didn’t care for the blotching left behind. I had much better success when I used Charles Neils blotch control before applying the stain. I had far less blotching. I first filled the grain using CrystsLac water based grain filler followed by a light sanding when dry. I then applied the blotch control (1coat) and lightly sanded when dry. Applied The Varathane stain next followed by about 8 coats of Waterlox Tung oil varnish.

The stain did have issues staying on the sharp edges of my project. It just didn’t adhere well to those areas. I’m referring to the the edge or corners of the table. Basically everything that wasn’t rounded over by the radius bit. I had this same issue with a water based gel stain on a project also.

i tried several samples using different techniques but it can be somewhat problematic to reproduce the same results compared to just an oil stain. I will try experimenting with the dye stains more like Scott suggested. This is definitely a learning process and an educational experience. I know when working with blotch prone woods like Cherry, Birch or Maple it’s going to blotch and I need to precondition the wood before oil stain but didnÂ’t quite expect this on Red Oak. Obviously, it was the stain in this case.

if anyone has any suggestions on a good dye stain to use or a good process, please respond.

thanks,
john

[Mark Bolton]

Best I can tell you didnt see an issue with your final solution because you used waterborne poly which didn't pickup the solvent stain with no/little binder. Glad you got lucky. Even waterborne will often pickup stains without a binder.

[John Adank]

I actually used an oil based product for the topcoat