Staining Stripped Woodwork
We have a variety of wood that has heavy shellac on it at our house. Much of this finish is globbed on and blotchy and/or very old and cracked now. I did many tests and we cannot just do a serious clean up of the outer layer and then put another coat or two of…
We have a variety of wood that has heavy shellac on it at our house. Much of this finish is globbed on and blotchy and/or very old and cracked now. I did many tests and we cannot just do a serious clean up of the outer layer and then put another coat or two of shellac on it to preserve the earliest finish. So we are left with stripping (which is easy actually with shellac) and then staining. I really would love to know what specific stain mixtures people have done to various old woods in area homes. We have maple, and some type of fruitwood for the most part in our house. But in the dining room it is all an old oak that has a very dark finish on it. In this room we can probably just clean it up and then polish it somehow. Does anybody have any good ideas for us? We really need them asap. Thanks.
You can also use lovely warm-colored shellac, and skip the stain. We are using garnet, and it gets even darker, button lac and seedlac.
You buy it dry and mix with alcohol. ridiculously easy, low-fumes, hardy finiah for just about anything but tabletops. You can even use it on floors, though it will wear more quickly.
I get my flakes here: http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=toolshop&Product_Code=MS-GSHEL.XX&Category_Code=TFS
you may find that some or all of the wood was stained and retains it’s color when you strip it (that’s what I’m finding in my place). If you want any advice on stripping, lok under the stripping forums – I love my silent paint stripper and it woks on the old shellac VERY well
We had a similar problem with a dark stain. After much experimenting, we came up with this: English Chestnut brushed on. Followed by a coat of Dark Walnut rubbed on with a cloth. Followed by a coat of 50% shellac/50% red mahogany. This mixture allowed us to match the dark wood beams in our dining room, and to cover up the few bits of white paint that we couldn’t remove when we stripped the baseboard. So I’d say that you should do some experimenting!
as a general rule, use stain colors that are complimentary to the natural wood color, adjusting the light to dark based on your preference. For instance, mahogany can be dark red to brownish orange , depending on what you’re starting with, but don’t try to make it walnut, or golden oak. If the wood has warm tones to begin with, keep your stain colors in the warm category. If the wood is a tan/greyish brown, pick colors that don’t accent strong orange or reds.
The point is, generally, when you try to stain wood sharply away from its natural hue, you risk losing clarity in the finish, and “muddying-up” the overall look.