A while back I was gifted some old classroom side tables the owner no longer needed. They came painted; I don’t know what kind of paint it was, but it was entirely resistant to citristrip. After finally working that out I painstakingly sanded the paint out from every nook and crevice with a dremel until I was confident it was clean. I dried it out, sanded it, and prepared to finally finish up.
Today I stained. Coat of wood conditioner, wait around half an hour, coat of stain. Maybe 3 more hours (instructions call for minimum 2) and a second coat. I was dismayed to find that while the top veneer stained beautifully, the legs came out splotchy. It looks like there was an invisible coat of primer on there or something that prevented the stain from taking. I am confident this is not the result of poor stain application; it was apparent that it wasn’t taking while I was brushing it. The band around the top also came out significantly darker than the top.
The band I know I probably can’t do anything about. It’s annoying but I can live with it. The legs are a different story. Is there anything I can do to make them take the stain more evenly?
P.S. I also had an entirely different table made of some kind of hardwood that I did. It took very evenly but didn’t color much even with two coats. I know with hardwoods that’s somewhat inevitable. Any tricks to make it take more, or do I just need to be happy with it?
Yuck. That sucks.
I hate to say it, but your best bet is probably to strip it and try again. I’d agree that it looks like some residual sealer/glue is preventing your stain to penetrate.
Out of curiosity, what are you using for stain?
Varathane classic wood penetrating stain. Should be oil based. If I decide to strip again, any advice on how to tell when I’ve got it all? Because to the naked eye this thing was completely cleaned before I added stain.
Varathane is decent. I tend to prefer water based stains, but I’m also finishing guitars which usually don’t feature as much end grain.
Checking for left over finish/glue depends on what they had on previously. Many wood glues glow under UV. Sometimes you can wet out the area with naphtha and see residue. Deep penetrating stains are a different beast though and your best bet, as suggested by others, may be to go with a paint rather than a dye.
Could be the wood itself, rather than any issue with prep. Some woods have areas of varying density that absorb stain unevenly. Maple’s the most notorious, but poplar and softwoods can also have issues, and those would have been common choices for use in a paint-grade piece of furniture. The conditioner should have helped, but maybe it just wasn’t sufficient on its own.
Gel stain will supposedly give better results than liquid on blotch-prone woods (I’ve never tried it). I usually get around it by using diluted acrylic paint instead of stain—while not ideal, it’s translucent enough to leave the grain visible and you can build up additional layers on parts of the surface if you need to.
Mentioned by others, but that mottled stain will be difficult to overcome. Have you considered paint rather than stain? If wood grain is very important, you could try to tint a poly finish - that would prob give the appearance you want - basically painting though.
Recently encountered this issue. Solution was many, many coats of stain and prestain, over about 4 days, light scraping with a sharp card scraper to level the surface each time.
After that ordeal, I have now learned that the pro move is a light base coat of Shellac, then on to the stain. I guess that helps to close pores more uniformly. Haven’t tried this way yet myself. Good luck!
You’re going to have trouble getting that perfect, the grain changes from flat to open pores as you go around the legs so some bits will sand out fine and then others will have sucked up whatever was originally used and it can penetrate pretty deep, especially if it’s something like oak. You could try finishing by spraying a tinted shellac or the natural amber color so you’re applying the color on the surface rather than trying to get it to soak evenly into the grain but that’s going to be a ton of work. Sanding in between coats will be tricky and you’ll need quite a few applications but it could end up looking pretty neat.
Honestly, I’d just toss it. Old paint can have all sorts of stuff in it; lead, hexavalent chromium, arsenic, etc.
I considered it on many occasions. Then I’d look at what a new solid wood table costs, sigh, and get back to work. I can swing some material money to sand and stain, but new furniture isn’t happening. So it’s make these work or don’t have decent side tables.