II recentlu purchased oak (white oak rather than red) veneer doors for my house and varnished then with clear satin varnish. I also replaced the skirting boards throughout the house with redwood (white in colour!) What should I use to stain / varnish this redwood to bring it to the same colour as the oak doors? John Nugnet
Won't work. Whatever you try to do will look naff because softwoods simply don't have the appearance, grain and ageing behaviour of oak
There are really two solutions:
- Buy oak skirting boards. This is actually not that expensive and was what I did after the fitting of oak room doors.
- Do something contrasting and not attempt a match at all.
A coloured glaze (thin varnish). You'll get an acceptable shade match for skirtings, if you have timber that's already sufficiently close in figure. It'll never look good close-up, as the structure of the timber just isn't the same.
Staining softwood is a bit unhappy, as it is too resinous and doesn't absorb evenly. A surface glaze is much more predictable.
Products from Liberon, Mylands et al., via Axminster.
The trouble with tinted glazed is overa couple of years bits come off, particularly in areas like skirting, and the results then look terrible. Its one option I'd not consider myself. Tinted varnish is the worst for anything prone to wear.
NT
Agreed, I've yet to see a real-life example of joinery which has been coloured successfully. I say either go for a contrasting look or replace with oak.
Also, redwood goes orange over time, especially without sunlight
That's because he uses the same fake tan as Blair.
I concur. I used coloured danish oil on some yellow pine plus some random unspecified softwood of similar density. The yellow pine wasn't bad - I had prepared it *very* well in terms of sanding down to 240 grit and the uptake of the colour (itself quite light) was fairly even. The unspecified softwood planks were quite different though, some patches literally sucked the colour in resulting in darker patches whilst other areas did not. It wasn't a problem as I expected this and the finish was supposed to be "rustic".
Tim
I had the problem that I wanted to match what is laughingly called 'redwood' facings and skirtings to old naturally aged pine doors. I found that I had to stain the 'redwood' with a thinned (white spirit) red mahogany (Colron) to make it pink and then I used light oak over that (several coats). The match is remarkably good in a hall with 5 doors and does look (nearly) as if it is all the same age (the modern grain gives it away).
It may well be that it the modern wood will change with time but apart from the obvious difference in grain between pine and oak, I suggest you try experimenting with pink stain to start with.
Rob
paint softwood, stain hardwood. End of story.
I once saw a good imitation cherry got by first painting with thinned down kid's pink paint, followed by wood stain! Worked well till someone tried to clean it :)
No, it wasnt me!
NT
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