Wood stain not coming out the right color (conditioner, refinish, stairs)
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My husband and I took it upon ourselves to refinish wood stairs over the weekend. We sanded to get old finish off then fine-sanded. We used pre-stain wood conditioner on the wood (it is pine) and then we brushed on "classic cherry" stain. We picked this oil-based stain because we wanted the darker brown color. The stain looked great when we first brushed it on...beautiful color! But 15-20 min. later, when we had to "wipe off excess" it seemed the color went away. We let the stairs dry overnight. Today it looks somewhat orangy and not dark brown at all. What can we do? We are thinking of adding another coat of stain today. Is there anything else that would help the color stay the way it looks when first applied? We will be topcoating with a water-based poly so, as I understand it, that won't change the color. Any tips from more knowledgeable people would be appreciated.
Um, the only thing I can think of is that it's not the color you want because the sample you saw was on a different type of wood. The hardness or softness of wood affects how the stain is taken up. So if you use the same exact stain on a piece of pine and a piece of white oak, it's going to look very different.
Many time to ge5t that deep red look to cheery a finisher will use a small finish spraygun to put a tint and also to higlight the right areas.But pine is really a very open grained wood to stain and really needs to be well sealed with a stain sealer before satining.
New pine and old pine will absorb at a diffeent rate. A second coat will probably do the trick. I would just do one stair and time how long you leave it on. If the color is still not deep enough, do it again and time it. When you wipe it off, add all the time together and that will give you the amount of time to leave the stain on the other steps.
Time and use on a stair will affect the how pourous the wood is. The steps may not all look the same in the end. they will be close. To me, that is the charm and character of old houses and redoing wood.
Not an easy job, but very rewarding when all done.
Put a second coat on. It will darken up. The first coat soaks in more, but acts as a sealer for the second coat. Each coat will be darker.
(I am staining wood today too )
Thank you! I will put a second coat on today. I read someplace else that the wood conditioner actually makes the stain appear lighter so I need to counteract that. Let's hope a second (or third??) coat will do the trick. Of course we went ahead and stained everything before testing on a small spot so now we need to make it look better or else all that work (and dust!) will be in vain.
it was the pre-stain conditioner. the time that my husband used this pre-stain conditioner on a piece of pine, the pine didn't absorb hardly any of the stain.
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