I am doing something wrong

...Not sure what though.

I have started with BARE pine doors (6 panel). I have put 4 coats of antique walnut satin (340) on these doors and they are only about 1/2 as dark as I need them to be.

My buddies suggested I sand with 1000 grit before the next coat. The back of the can said to use steel wool so I am using 000 steel wool because I don't have any paper finer than 220 grit.

I put that coat on and it is drying now but I am not confident this will do it. What can I be doing wrong? I need to get these doors darker with the same color of stain.

Oh, I have one door that is as dark as I needed after 3 or 4 coats. I just don't know what I did different. I might have sanded that one in between coats, I forget.

Appreciate any advice, thx

 

It is difficult to apply multiple coats of stain, genrally the 1st coat seals the wood enough to prevent the next coats from obsorbing. If you are using the correct stain for what you want, I'd apply sealer and then go darker by using a tinted varnish/poly.

 

Might have been a good idea to start with a conditioner like Minwax's:

http://www.minwax.com/products/woodprep/prestain.cfm

Not sure about using it once you have stain on the piece.

 

Wash sealers or wood conditioners help soft woods like pine to stain more evenly, but they also tend to make the wood stain lighter.

 

Thx for the suggestions.

Not sure what I will do with these doors, but for the guture I might use a wood conditioner and I am thinking I can sand it a bit so the wood will absorb more stain.

 

I got to thinking about this...I am using a stain and poly in one (http://www.minwax.com/products/onestep/Polyshades.cfm). So maybe the wood is becoming sealed. So would a stain without the poly be better for this many coats? Would it make a difference?

 

Pigmented poly isn't stain it's translucent paint.The pigment settles to the bottom of the can very quickly. Stir very vigorously before using and continue to stir as you go. Lot's of people have problems with that stuff becuase the pigment settles so quickly.

 

As Jan said, polyshades is not a stain, the first coat sealed the wood. Any additional coats are basically just more coats. The only way you can significantly darken the doors is to strip off the poly shades back to bare wood and start with a stain, before poly.

 

As stated it is best to apply stain, let it dry and then use varnish/poly. Polyshades is great for altering the color of already stained and sealed wood. It can be very tricky to apply to raw wood - some have trouble applying it evenly to sealed wood

Stripping everything down to raw wood and starting over can be a real pain. Have you already coated the majority of the wood work? Adding a LITTLE bit of oil base dark brown paint to the poly will help it color more. I'm hesitant to recomend this to a novice because it is so easy to mess up the job by lack of experience.

 

I really appreciate all the help here...so thanks.

I am a beginner when it comes to staining with multiple coats but I am not a beginner all together. I am pretty handy, in fact I hung all of these doors and a door jamb.

My point is, I can do the work if I know what to do.

Last night I sanded one of the doors with 220 grit paper and then stained it (I think this is what I did with the one door that has taken the color well) and so far that seemed to work well. I will need to look today when it is dry.

For the other doors I will probably use a stain and a separate poly last. I also might use the wood conditioner, just depends.

 

Remember that doors that are stained using a different method may look different when finished. It may not be a problem but you don't want 2 doors side by side that look totally different.

 

I was able to rescue the doors by sanding with 120 grit then 220 grit and putting on another layer. The sanded wood is dark enough from previous coats and the new coat sticks enough to get as dark as I need.

I went to the store and got some wood conditioner, stain and a poly, all in separate cans

I will try these new items on a bit of 2x4 first.