Showing posts with label staining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label staining. Show all posts

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Stain test

I only had a bit less than an hour to put into fun today, so I decided to try the gel stain on a piece larger than a scrap.



I'm glad that I tried to stain one of the least visible shelf first as I learned a few things:
  • Sand thouroughly even if it looks fine. Stain isn't going to be kind to irregularity
  • Get rid of glue patches. This isn't a huge deal in this case but it doesn't take much to cause a blemish.
  • Change cloth and gloves often! These spots of stain spread everywhere... quick.

This is brief, but that's all for now.

Monday, May 16, 2011

To assemble then stain, or the other way around.

I've been back into the woodshop a bit more in the last few days. Getting the house ready to go on the market turns out to be a major drain upfront and every time that there is a showing scheduled. If only someone would buy it and I could move on to my new, 700 sq. ft. woodshop (with a house built around it).

Let's recapitulate, here is the design.

The project seems straightforward when shown like this.

and the final look:

Front view. The dark colour wood is stained sugar maple while the light coloured wood will be figured Pimento veneer.

The design changed a bit since the time I made it up in sketchup: the doors are shorter and there will be a drawer in the lower part of the middle section (it is a hinge clearance issue). All parts are made, except for the top, the drawer, the doors and the back slats. I think that it is better to stain before assembly, but I'm afraid that I'll seal the pores and prevent the glue to work as well as it should. Taping the glue-up area is an option, but I see this as a tricky thing, especially around the dowels, etc.

In the end, I think that I'll stain first as it will be easier to control the wiping process of the gel stain. however, I'll probably keep the wipe-on poly for after the piece is assembled.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Small desktop shelves

While I'm working on the all complex loom project and the No5. Jack plane restoration, I got around to finish the pair of desktop shelves to store the kiddos' computer games.

Working with pine got old fast, but having a first shot at staining was interesting. This is the last project that predates getting all of the heavy duty toys.