How to Stain Wood

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How to Stain Wood by HomeAdditionPlus.com

Hi! I am Mark Donovan from homeadditionplus.com and today I am going to show you a few tips on how to stain wood.

First thing you need to do is determine what type of wood you are planning on staining. Here we have hard wood which is an oak wood; and hard woods are woods like oak or maple. And here I have the example of soft wood. This is a piece of colonial casing trim made out of pine. Pines will absorb a stain much easier than a hard wood and thus, could come up looking quite dark with even one coat of stain. Hard wood on the other hand does not absorb stain as well and we may out several coats of stain on this particular piece of oak to actually get it to darken up to the significant extent.

If you do not know what type of wood you actually have whether it be a hard wood or soft wood, it is easy to actually tell for the most part but just looking at the grain of the wood. With this particular piece of hard wood, you will notice the grain is rather consistent throughout. This is an example of a hard wood product whereas a soft wood frequently can be blotchy in appearance and the grain not be consistent throughout the length of the board. So those are two simple ways to really determine if you got a hard or soft wood. Because soft wood can sometimes have an uneven grain with kind of splotchy appearance, it is best to usually use some type of pre-stain conditioner on the wood itself prior to applying the stain; this will allow a more even look on the trim board or piece of wood that you are staining.

Prior to actually staining the wood, it is important that it be sanded to the level that you are looking for. A finer grit sand paper is going to allow for a more difficult time for the stain to absorb into the wood and thus, you have a lighter appearance. If you use a coarser grain, the wood will have a better ability to absorb the stain but will have a rougher surface. So you have a darker surface but a rougher looking texture.

To actually stain the wood you can use a kind of a sponge brush as I got here or a regular type of stain brush or a rag. My preference is a sponge brush as it absorbs some of the stains, efficient amounts that you can spread it evenly over the wood. Because stain is difficult to get off your hands, it is best to use a pair of vinyl or latex gloves to protect your hands from getting a stain on. In addition, it is best to work in open air area or well ventilated area as the fumes from the stain are quite strong.

To actually apply the stain, we soak up some of the stain on the brush and rub it along the line or grain of the wood in long even strokes. We apply a liberal amount of the stain on the wood. And this particular wood is a hard piece of wood so right after we apply the stain we want to basically let it sit on the wood for approximately five to 15 minutes. The longer we wait, the more time the stain have a chance to absorb into the wood. Particularly with hard woods, because there is difficulty in absorbing into the wood, we may need to put several coats on. So we give this five to 15 minutes of rest and then we will wipe it down with the rag.

Now that our piece of wood has had some time to absorb the stain, we use a clean rag and we will wipe down the stain in the direction of the grain of the wood. As you can see here, we had a chance for to really have the opportunity to absorb into the wood to a color that I am comfortable with or what I am working on.

Now, if we choose to put on a second coat to darken this up, we will wait four to six hours and then apply a second coat of stain. Again, in the direction of the grain and let it dry for another 15 minutes and then again wipe off any excess stain. After we got it darken to the level that we are interested in, we can let this sit for approximately eight hours or so and then we could put a couple of coats of polyurethane on it to give it a shine and a protective finish.

So those are the basic steps for staining wood. If you have other home improvement questions, visit us at homeadditionplus.com today.

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