Have some cabinets that I'm replacing the Cab. Doors and Drawer Fronts on. Cabinets and Faceframes are Oak stained and urathaned, That 70's Show look. I'd like to stain the faceframes and side panels with a Java Gel Stain or Expresso Gel, darker look. Then Gel the new doors and drawer fronts to match.
I'm assuming I need to strip the urathane, but how do you deal with the existing stain? Or will mulitple coats of gel cover the tight grain of oak?
Thanks in Advance
Tight grain? On oak? Might be hard to get the urethane out of the pores but if you manage that and sand to bare wood, it should turn out great.
basilisk
About 6 months ago I went through this.
We live in a new home and the kitchen cabinets are actually maple with an espresso stain. First glance they appear black but are really a dark dark brown.
Anyway I built a large white oak pantry with natural and dark brown stained wood to match the color of our existing cabinets.
I tried the normal oil based espresso stains and gel stains. They simply did not darken the wood to anywhere close to what our kitchen cabinets were.
The solution for me was to use General Finishes water based DYE stain. Only then did I get the "DARK" color.
Experiment on scraps.
I used General Finishes Java Gel Stain. Actually after a few coats of the Gel it looks pretty good. I'm now wondering what will happen with the new doors and fronts. I do think the hardest part is getting the urethane out of the pours of the oak in order to get the gel to penetrate the grain.
The Dye Stains are the powder dyes or are you getting the dye in a can. I may give it a try if it takes less time and only one coat.
Actually now that I think of it Oak is a pretty loose grain. Not looking forward to sanding the crown though. The face frames and sides shouldn't be that big a deal but all those curvy sections suck.
Varnish a scrap and then sand it and stain over it. Yo may not need to get all of the finish out of the pores. And with a gel maybe less likely.
Yes, General finishes has it ready to go.
Here is the result of the Dark Brown, All wood is white oak, some natural and some obviously stained with the Dark Brown dye.
Beyond that the dye is extremely easy to deal with but use plenty of tarps to protect against drips, it is applying water, drips are inevitable, and wear gloves, it is a dye.
You might consider one of those environmentally friendly finish removers. Some of they work pretty well.
Leon,
did you get splotchy results with that dye sta> >> Have some cabinets that I'm replacing the Cab. Doors and Drawer Fronts >> on.
And one more thing, Leon, did you wipe it or spray it on? Have you ever sprayed it?
I am work> Leon,
Oak should not give you a blotchy results as a rule.
Maple certainly will, and it is notoriously difficult to control the blotchyness under the best of circumstances.
That said, that stained maple, blotchy "look" seems to be an "in thing" right now ... many kitchen and furniture magazines and catalogs seem to be featuring it lately.
When this maple kitchen was refinished last month on a home being put back on the market (a mix of old and new kitchen cabinets, the old, existing cabinets being previously finished in a typical natural maple look), we basically went for the look and colors that are the "in thing" in the local market, for obvious reasons:
In order to get the old and new to match, we most definitely had to take the existing cabinets back to bare wood to get a consistent finish from cabinet to cabinet.
Formula: 50% Dark Walnut; 50% English Chestnut; and a toner in the lacquer topcoat that matched the color of the Dark Walnut.
Not at all but I did "apply liberally", it almost pooled on the top as I applied but I immediately wiped the excess off each section at a time. Basically the stuff is so thin that it penetrates immediately so you need to apply enough so that you get good coverage. Not complicated, it takes 4~10 seconds to understand how much to apply.
Now General Finishes also makes a "regular" water based stain which is much thicker by comparison and is a bit easier to deal with and raises the grain a bit less.
I'm joining this discussion late, so pardon the tangent.... I've had pretty good results by using this pre-stain conditioner before dyes...
I always wipe the stains on and wipe off the excess. I have never sprayed.
The two tone pantry has an oil based gel varnish on it, I used "no longer available" Lawrence Mcfadden gel varnish. I am how switching over to Old Masters gel varnish. It requires being wiped down two times after application between coats but provides a great finish.
I have never use a prestain conditioner. How do "you" apply it?
I don't remember exactly how I did, but I do remember calling their customer service and asking for tips. They said that the directions on the can were the only "tips" they'd have. IIRC, I just applied and wiped. I may have used a foam brush to liberally apply it, then good old t-shirt rags to wipe off.
Here's a pic of the results on either beech or birch, which will blotch like maple. I'll let you judge... I don't know, maybe it'd still blotchy, I can't tell. :-)
Yea I know, that's why when Leon said he used it on maple I was curious of this was the magic bullet. I don't like the new blotchy look. I like smooth and classic.
That said, I always like dyes over stains, but again prefer natural wood to color usually. I just don't want the maple look. Tired of maple...
Obviously not a minwax dark walnut which is usually blah... Dark Walnut in minwax looks nothing like real walnut.
Nice, very even...
No,no no no I did not use it on maple, I used it on white oak trying to match espresso on existing new maple cabinets. Just to be clear.
I'll take that as a great compliment, because that's exactly what we were going for.
The client said, "orange" and I asked him to get more specific by searching the web and looking at the local Woodcraft for the color he wanted. He ended up telling me he loved the look of Padauk and asked if we could use it. When I told him how much it costs, we decided to try to color/grain match a cheaper wood. :-)
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