I've an old can of Minwax (oil-base) stain (dark walnut) thats been in the basement since sometime in the 1980's. It's contents look gelatinous.
Does anybody know if I can thin it with mineral spirits or ? to make it again usable?
Thx, Will
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Sure, if you can get the solids re-suspended--you may need to strain it if some aren't so willing any longer...
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You might be able to revive it but a new quart can of Minwax is about $8. Is your project worth the additional $8?
Hell, MY time alone is worth the eight bucks.
Dave in Houston
What are you talking about? The old product is now mimicking the new gel stains. ;)
If it shakes up OK, he should try it on a scrap and see if it dries. (I'd add "without mottling" but stains just do that, so I won't.)
-- Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air... -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
As somebody else reported a month ago...the new Minwax stain is crap. I believe they reported it contained some wax compound or something....I forget. Urethane bubbles on top of it after allowing it to dry over a week.This never used to happen, years back.
I have an oak staircase to resand and refinish now.
"Nova" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com... You might be able to revive it but a new quart can of Minwax is about $8. Is your project worth the additional $8?
Urban legend I would think. I've used it by the gallons over the years and never had a problem then or now.
I don't know...I suspect this is in reference to the Polyshades product not the original oil stains. If so, I have to agree in my assessment of it as an inferior product w/ my one-time experience of trying to help patch up a started job by elder daughter on her kitchen cabinets.
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My old stuff isn't a problem either. My new stuff was.
I am not an "urban" and it wasn't my myth.
Maybe sticking with matching brands would have helped.
Careful when you quote. Jack didn't say that. The sock puppet did.
Nor have I.
I was forced to start using it when folks went to HD or Lowe's (when they carried it) and picked out colors. I never had a problem with it, and as a matter of fact have found it to be quite good.
Guess it depends on the applicator.
Robert
I think some people also expect oil stains to somehow act like paint and turn any wood the exact color on the can label. Not realizing it is an art with many factors such as the type of wood, how the wood is prepared, how the stain is applied, etc.
I say this from experience because I only learned this via the school of hard knocks and by making lots of mistakes and finally I stopped blaming Minwax.
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The applicator?? You mean that little foam brush thingy?? LOL
Got a story for ya Robert, you will like it.
Back in the day, I made custom water beds. They were big, king size affairs made with 2 X 12's. The had solid wood platforms and sitting rails. I made them mostly from hemlock with some pine from time to time. I could turn them out fast and they were better built and competitive with what the stores were selling at the time.
Since most of my customers were trying to save a buck, a simple stain was all they wanted to pay for. Most people just went with Watco. Some would put a little wax over that.
I got this job. Four people all wanted the same bed. It was a little more elaborate, but I gave them a good deal since I was doing four beds at once. Two customers just wanted the standard Watco finish. One had their own stain they want me to apply. They were going to put something on top of that when it was at their home. But the fourth guy, well, he was trouble.
He had gone to this custom wood finishing store that specialized in marine finishes. The could custom make any color of stain you wanted. And had a whole bunch of different products that had to be applied in exact order. It would take almost two weeks to apply all the different finishes, in the proper order. And of course, many of the coats needed to be prepped for the coat that covered it. Again, a nightmare of details.
I strongly argued against it. I quoted him an enormous price, far exceeding the cost of the bed, to discourage him. But he was fixated on this exotic finish and announced he was going to do this himself. I tried to warn him, but he had the hots for this and nothing I could say was going to stop him.
So I gave him a careful lecture with lots of notes so he could do this. And did not see him for a couple months after that. Then I dropped by his place and was shocked at the absolute personification of ugliness. This finishing job saw so bad, it actually scared girls away who were about to jump in bed with him. I was shocked. I couldn't believe you could finish anything and make it look this bad. More disturbing was the fact he did it to one of my water beds. Not exactly good for business.
He admitted he should have heeded my advice. He wanted a price quote to "fix" it. Which was a lot higher than it would have cost to just make a whole, new bed. I told him that the cheapest way to salvage this abomination was to sand paper the surface, to rough it up a bit, and paint it. And I told him to not buy some junky paint to do it either. He paid me a few bucks to go to the paint store and pick some good paint and primer.
He painted it shiny black. Not my choice, but much better than the "look of death" style finish he had on there before.
How bad can stain be? I mean either it turns things brown or it doesn't. And even a piece of crap can do that.
OK, using the turd analogy is perfect. I have a fresh, dark walnut brown turd and and some finely sanded hard maple. I expect the turd to make the maple dark walnut brown. I rub some around on the maple and it looks pretty brown. then I wipe the maple down with a clean cloth and the maple is hardley colored. This turd is shit I say. I expected this turd to turn that hard maple dark walnut brown.
Replace "turd" with Minwax.
Ah, gotcha.
LOL!
Yeah, yeah! That's it! ;^)
I remember those days! One of my old employees (a house framer!) went to Austin to make those. He convinced everyone there that he was a "craftsman" because he made "useful" things by working with his hands. Stylish to be bohemian back then. He did pretty good at it! He was always bugging me to bring him scraps of 2X material to use on his beds.
Well, back then I would have burned the waterbed if that happened to me! Back in those days.... women were frisky.... *sigh*.... and a missed opportunity? Are you kidding?
But in those days of organic and natural everything, that bed must have been butt-nasty ugly for someone to notice.
I got a good guffaw out of that. Before I started doing my own finishing, I disavowed any knowledge of some of my projects. Some of the finish work I have seen (dark walnut on untreated knotty pine comes to mind) was just scary. I didn't like it, nor did the folks that did it.
Hey... at least you got him back in the game! There for a while gloss black or lacquer black was pretty popular.
Those were the days with that blocky furniture, no? I still have an old bed table from that era, and it is built heavy enough to hold a car engine. The table is about 20"X24", but the legs are turned
4X4s! The top is a full 2" thick. It has giant hardware on it, too.Those were the days, eh?
Robert .
wrote
Heey!! I resemble that remark.
I used to make these big coffee tables. A brochure we had had a picture of a pickup truck on top of it. Remind me of a company making home gym equipment. He had elephants standing on top of his equipment. I didn't know anybody who had an elephant, so I went with the classic redneck imagery.
We had lines like, "You can put your feet up on this coffee table", "Strong enough to sit on", etc. Those were the days.
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