In this video, I want to give you a demonstration of stain application
Now before I get going, just a couple of things. This is a piece of wood. This has been sanded thoroughly. It's nice and smooth. It's ready to go
It's not a very fancy piece of wood. It's just a chunk of construction grade spruce, actually
But it will take a very nice finish, as you'll see. I've got gloves on
Not essential, but a good idea, especially if you're dealing with solvent-based stains like we are here
Just to make sure none of it gets on your skin and gets absorbed to your skin
It's not lethally deadly or anything like that, but you'll be cleaner and probably a little bit healthier, at least, if you wear gloves
These gloves are kind of interesting. Green Monkey. They're biodegradable. So I don't know about you. I like to save my gloves as much as possible, but eventually you've got to throw them out
And a regular glove, who knows how many centuries it's going to last in the landfill
This is supposed to be rotten in 10 years, so there's more and more gloves like that coming out
I've got my stain. It's all stirred up. Very important to stir stain
Most stains will settle out, so if you want to get the full coloring power, you need to mix them
Power mixing, as I've shown you before, is an excellent thing to do
And then just a final stirring every so often as you're doing it
If the job is taking a long time, you don't want to have that stain settling out
So I'll just leave the stir stick in there for now. Step one. Get the stain on the wood
It doesn't really matter how you get it on. Neatness does not count at this stage
So I like to use a brush. It's not so big of a deal here with a nice flat piece of wood with no intricate nooks and crannies
but a brush is great for getting the stain right into profiles, say routed profiles, or into corners and things
It's hard to reproduce that with a rag, but as you'll see, rags are still essential
With staining, you just want to get it on and wipe it all off
No stain should remain on the surface when you're done. And that's the way stain imparts color without fouling up the appearance of the wood grain
You're still going to get full wood grain results showing through, but then the sealing coat is going to go on top and give you that depth of finish
Now that doesn't look so hot, does it? But luckily it doesn't have to
Now I'm going to wipe this off. Now this is a clean rag. It's very thirsty
If I were to be doing a large project over a period of time, this is going to get saturated and it's going to get less thirsty
So I'm going to have to vary my pressure, actually. So right now I'm not putting on a whole lot of pressure because I want to remove the stain
but I want it to be homogenous. I want it to leave some color behind, too
This particular stuff I'm using dries a little bit faster than other stains
I can already feel it starting to stiffen up a bit. There we go
And there we've got our color, and it's nice and even. That's essentially the staining process
I'm going to let that dry. As I said, this is a solvent-based and oil-based stain
I have no problem using this underneath water-based urethane, though, as long as it's thoroughly dry first, before I put the urethane on
So I would leave this for at least 24 hours. That should be plenty, but if you want to leave it longer, there's no problem with that either
I just should mention something as an aside here. As you gain experience finishing wood, you're going to discover approaches for making good things happen that don't necessarily follow the regular rules
This stain, so to speak, is one of those things, because it's not actually a stain in the usual sense
It is a stain, and you can see it's a lovely brown color. I love this color
I think what I'll do, actually, in order to make it even richer, is when this has dried thoroughly, I'm going to give it another coat, just to make it deeper and richer
And then the urethane, and I'll come back and show you what that looks like
But this actually, in Minwax Poly shades, this is marketed as a stain and a sealer all in one
And I usually prefer a greater degree of protection than this product alone can deliver
But, technically speaking, it does offer a certain amount of protection. And for light-duty items, this can be fine all on its own. At least that's what it's sold for
I don't actually use this poly shades in that way, though. I always use it as a coloring agent with something else on top to give it a little more protection
But I do happen to love this particular color. It's called American Chestnut
It's a wonderful color, and it even gets better over time, actually, as the wood matures and the finish starts to take on a patina
But, essentially, there you go. That's the staining process