Oak Finishing: Need Advice

[Brian Siano]

I'm getting ready to refinish a large chunk of the stairs in my house. I stripped the paint off (most of) it, to learn that it was made of some fairly nice non-quartersawn oak, with spindles that could be either oak or chestnut. Part of the repair work involved making spindle "spacers" with Borg-bought oak, which I _think_ is red oak.

I'd like to refinish it, but oak gives me problems. Y'see, I created a stain board with all the Minwax samples I had. And the stains rarely did much to the oak strip: the grain changed, of course, but the color on the lighter areas looked closer to magic-marker spills than anything else. It's as if the raw oak had a built-in finish.

I had great results when I used mahogany on a recent project (at

so maybe my expectations on oak are a bit skewed. But, I would love to get a nice golden-amber or golden-mahogany-like color to my oak.

From what I can tell, the general strategy for finishing oak involves 1) a stain 2) a seal, probably shellac 3) a glaze, mainly another player of stain 4) the final finish.

Thing is, I don't have the means to try a wide range of experimental stain combinations. Can people point me to places where I can see the end results of oak-staining efforts along with a description of the process? Or, make suggestions as to stain combinations?

[HMFIC-1369]

Most places use a polyshade like product from minwax.... on mass manufacutered stuff. It's less affected by wood color.

[Patriarch]

Brian Siano wrote in news:MOgHe.6382$W72.540 @trndny05:

"spacers"

Golden amber is actually pretty easy. That's usually what you get on red oak with an application of BLO, then a shellac or oil-based varnish. No other coloring agent is usually required.

Grain fill at your option.

You might want to look at the recent, much discussed article by Chris Minick in FWW, on wiping finishes. There's a lot of good info there, even if it did light a firestorm here.

Patriarch

[JGS]

[eag111]

Brian-- First of all, you did a great job on that radiator cover on your website.

As for staining oak, I recently had to stain a strip of new red oak, and because it was a small project and I was in a hurry, I just used some Minwax stain I had on hand. I too found the initial coats on a test piece very light...and not nearly as nice as the samples on a Minwax display I happen to have. So I applied it heavily, wiping the stain on and letting it sit a few minutes before wiping it off. And I applied two or three coats. That improved the coverage a bit (although I was looking for a light color to match an existing door...) And when I topcoated with spar varnish, the look improved a bit.

In the past, To get a nice golden color on red oak, I've used Behlan's pore-o-pac grain filler (it comes in various shades, and once I used artists colors to darken it).......followed by waterlox or other topcoat.

To get a nice dark stain on quartersawn white oak, I've used the methods described by Jeff Jewitt (go to

or look at the Fine Woodworking website). He has two different recipes...the simpler one involves a reddish-brown dye stain followed by McCloskey's Tungseal in dark walnut...the other uses dye stains, shellac, glaze and more shellac...both produce beautiful results, although I've never used them on red oak.

HTH Eric

[W. Wells]

[toller]

I have done plenty of red oak and have never had the problem you refer to. If I did, I guess I would try a gel-stain.

[Duane Bozarth]

Two things I see in addition to what others have pointed out...

1. Having stripped a painted finish, it's likely the old material won't absorb anything nearly as well as freshly milled material.
2. Depending on the age, there's a reasonable likelihood the stair treads/balustars just be white oak instead of red...if so, it will also stain differently, particularly since the grain is less pronounced as are the pores

Depending on the surface and finish desired if it is red oak you may want to fill the pourous rings prior to any other operation.

You may have trouble w/ red oak and getting the yellow shade you're after, particularly w/ the new material as the red tends to come through.

[eag111]

I forgot to mention...I refinished some oak stairs with Minwax polyshades...big mistake! The stuff isn't nearly tough enough. Whatever you do, be sure to topcoat your stair treads with a clear flooring-grade finish....

[Brian Siano]

Thanks. Truth be told, that makes that thing is the mahoigany and the finish. God, it'd be great if a stain could make pine look like mahogany....

Sounds like I've got a book purchase in my future....