Dark stain

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Machiners2
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Dark stain

Post by Machiners2 »

Hi I have recently had a request for a match for an old frame stained to look like old dark oak - a very dark brown. I haven’t been asked for this before. The frame I am matching is luckily an existing Wessex obeche moulding. Which wood stain do you think is best for this purpose, and any suggestions for a matt varnish or wax to seal it with? I currently use wax over painted frames that rubs to a slight sheen or a Polyvine matt finish one which I heard about on here. I find the finish of the Polyvine slightly ‘plasticy’ if you know what I mean, which I don’t mind and usually is fine, but this client has particularly said she doesn’t like it!
Thanks so much in advance for any suggestions
Candida
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Re: Dark stain

Post by pramsay13 »

If you get van dyke crystals you can match the colour to suit.
I use liberon waxes.
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Re: Dark stain

Post by vintage frames »

Van Dyke crystals - I agree. And here's what to do.
Buy 50 gm from these guys -
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Water-Based- ... 3268096281
Dissolve some in hot water and test colour and strength on a scrap piece of obeche. ( too light - add more, too dark - add more water )
Now choose a few oak colours from this company -
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324212565496 ... 5338345293
I'd suggest Dark oak, Golden oak and Jacobean Oak.
So you mix these oak colours together until you have a colour that resembles the original. Then you add in the Van Dyke stain to give the colours a more 'antique' tone. Lots of experiment and mess, but everything is water borne and harmless. And all the colours are cheap!
Once you've decided on the colour, apply it liberally to the frame, let it soak in and then wipe over with a dry rag.
Always look at the WET colour only.
If it's too lght, give it another coat when the first has dried; in fact the best results are obtained by doing everything - twice.
When it's dry seal the frame with shellac sealer which you can buy from the same company as did the waterstains -
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shellac-Poli ... 3269209271
Go for 100ml of White Sealer. This is alcohol based so dilute it 50/50 with meths and paint over the stain with a fine quality brush.
Paint on two coats, drying between and then clean out the brush in meths and warm soap.
2 or 3 hours later, fine sand the surface smooth( not too vigorous, careful not to cut back to bare timber ).
Now you can rub on two coats of wax and finish.
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Re: Dark stain

Post by Gesso&Bole »

If you are used to paint and wax finish this will be a very simple solution.

Paint the wood with mat emulsion or acrylic paint in the right sort of tones that you are looking for,but much lighter. So if you wanted a mahogany end result paint the wood dark rusty red colour, Jacobean Oak, paint it the colour of Dairy Milk chocolate.

Then with a brush, apply Liberon Black Patinating Wax. The frame should now look completely black. Don’t leave this on for long, usually the length of time it takes to get round the frame. Then with a clean cloth (I use Regina paper towels) use Clear wax to gently remove the black, until it reveals the colour you are looking for. Don’t rub hard, keep the cloth clean, and just ‘clean’ off the black that you don’t want. Once it’s the correct colour, leave the wax to dry for half an hour, and then buff it up. At that point I often add more clear wax to ensure a good coating.

This finish is quick and easy, and really comes into its own when there is some detail to the moulding so the black wax can be left in the crevices.
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Re: Dark stain

Post by vintage frames »

Actually, that's a really good idea. Maybe try that first.
Or if you want to be really arty, you could try a mix of the two ideas. Both are water-based before the waxing.
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Re: Dark stain

Post by Not your average framer »

Black patinating wax is good stuff and works great of painted open grain wood and easily gets in to the slight bits of open grain on the wood. It's also great stuff to experiment with and just see what happens.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Dark stain

Post by Machiners2 »

Wow thank you so much for the great and detailed advice ! I can learn so much on here. Will be doing some experimenting 😄
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Re: Dark stain

Post by girlfromkent »

Love this thread! So much detail.

I want to have a go!
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Re: Dark stain

Post by Not your average framer »

It's really straight fordward and quite instinctive to do. I'm a big fan of Van Dyke crystals and mixed other pigments in to the mix to create the exact colour and tone that I am lloking for. I like to add Venician red which is quite a soft red and duplicates the breakfast room red of the regency period and also was at one time a popular colour for frames when large houses used to often have a print room. Adding a bit of gentle distressing and aging to soft and subtile colours looks less contrived and somehow a lot more natural.

I am quite well known locally for really mellow lolder looking frames in old pubs, hotels and bed and breakfast venues around the dartmoor area.. I would not say that there is anything particurly clever about being able to do this. It's got a lot more to do with having a really good look a nice frames when you happen to see the in auction houses and old places that are open to the public and having a memory for colours and textures. I'm a bit behind the times in my thinking and mostly like to copy things that I like. I don't think that you could ever accuse me of being all that in tune with the latest fassions.

I like things that stand out, because they are special and are largely timeless in character. It's surprising how many of the currently less fashionable colours are getting more popular, when creating ae period inspired look. Also distressing and aging is not a uniform effect, Items are never distress all over, there are places where thing are naturally subject to wear and getting those little scratches, rub marks, or ingrained dirt. It does not takes as much thinking about as many people might imagine, quite a lot of it become totally intuitive after a relatively short time.

Like so many things, it's just keeping your eyes open and getting plenty of practice copying what you see and developing an educated eye.
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Re: Dark stain

Post by girlfromkent »

How do people feel about Liberon water based stains?

"Village Green"?
https://www.agwoodcare.co.uk/interior-w ... stain-dye/

Spirit based versus water based?
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Re: Dark stain

Post by prospero »

Obeche doesn't like spirit stain very much. :? It is a very bland timber. Very difficult to get a good smooth sheen
on if you don't prepare the surface beforehand.

I typically fill/prime/sand the surface and use a two stage paint effect. Solid basecoat with a darker thin coat on top
which is dragged with a dry brush while wet. You can get some nice grainy effects but you have to work fast and
be careful not to 're-wet' it.

Yellow Ochre/Raw Umber mix with a dab of White for the basecoat. Diluted Raw Umber/Burnt Umber for the top
'glaze' produces a nice mellow oaky-type finish. Black/Burnt Umber on top makes a nice dark wood.
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Re: Dark stain

Post by Not your average framer »

I use water based stains a lot more than sirit based stains, because they are quite easy and striaght forward. Brushes are eaisly cleaned up in water and If I need to sightly tweet the colour, I can mix it a little artists acrylic paint, which seem to work well. However spirit stains work well on wood that has been sealed with shellac based sanding sealer.

I like to add antique looking dusty washes over stains much of the time and as these washes will be water based, it seems to make sense that the stains underneath will water based as well, although there are ways of getting water based washes made from match pots and acrylic artists paints to stick to spirit based stained finishes, if you know what to do. However for me I like quick, simple and easy, so water based saves me a bit of time.
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Re: Dark stain

Post by Not your average framer »

I agree with Prosperro about staining Obeche. It does not really work for me either. For me the particular advantage of stained finishes is simplicity and speed, but getting a nice stained result on obeche means a lot of messing around , so the advantage of simplicity goes straight out the window. Unfortunately a lot of the most interesting profiles, tend to only be available as only in obeche, which does not help to keep things simple and therefore reasonable speedy.

Getting rid of the flecks that are natural to obeche in a PITA. I dont like building up layers of surface filler / primers and spending ages sanding it smooth and I prefer to use a mixture of Craig and Rose 1829 Chalky emusion and acrylic paint, which I smooth down with a mixture of meths and cellulose solvent of a piece paper kitchen towel. which is both quick and much less messing about.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Dark stain

Post by vintage frames »

You would be better off sticking to water based wood dyes. They are easily mixed, diluted and applied. If it all goes wrong, then you can scrub them off with some hot water. For best results, they are best applled with two coats.
It doesn't really matter who makes them, they are all aniline dyes.
Spirit dyes are much more aggressive. If you know exactly which colour you want then a spirit dye will do exactly as it says on the bottle as soon as it hits the wood. But there's so going back!
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Re: Dark stain

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Candida,

I see that you find that Polyvine varnishes look a bit plasticy. Well, this is certainly true, when used straight out of the bottle, if you are not trying to do anything about that. Stain is a coloured medium, but a lot depends on what you do with it afterwards. In it's pristine satin finish, it looks just like that, which is what it says of the bottle, it still needs a little added creativity to make it in to something that looks like it's lived a bit. I use the range of PolyVine acrlic wax finish varnishes myself and these are my main go to stains. It's all about what you can do with them, that creates the stunning look and effect. Firstly, it is often necessary to prevent the darker parts of the woodgrain from absorbing an excessive amount of the stain and therefore resulting in an un-natural looking contrast between the lighter and darker part of the wood grain. There are many different ways of preventing this, but different people often prefer different ways of doing this.

I am often staining pine, which very easily looks not very inspiring when stained. It requires a bit of technique to make the wood look like something more acceptable. To be honest about it, I know a few of the old school furniture makers tricks and also like to bend the rules a bit. Initial coats of water based finishes on pine can have a tendacy to raise the grain a bit and traditionally, that means sanding down the raised grain to get back to a nice smooth finish. Well, I'm not much in to doing too much sanding, so as I know that raising of the grain depend up on the amount of moisture absorbed in to the wood and that it takes time for the grain to absorb this moisture and for the cells in the wood to swell and produce the raised grain. I have a answer to this and my first coat of whatever I apply is applied and then wiped away leaving little time for the wood to absorb moisure and raise the grain, I often dry this fist coat as fast as I can with a hot air gun to evaporate any residual moisture to prevent the wood from absorbing it and raising the grain.

However, generally pin looks like a cheap and not very special wood and my first coat is usually one of watery white, cream, or grey emulsion paint , which is thoughily wiped away and immediately over painted with a well brushed out coat of the PolyVine wax finish Acrylic varnish. This is not thinned down with any water and it is brushed out to be only a very thin coat, so as to add minimal extra moisture. A little of the underlying finish coat of well watered down paint with still be fully drying, so that a small amount of this will get in to the coat of acrylic finish which has just been applied and will slightly fog the stain, making the pronanced grain of the pine a little less obvious, that it would otherwise be. The pores in the surface of the wood have already absorbed enough watered down emulsion, or acrylic paint to prevent the darker parts of the grain, which are much more absorbent than lighter parts and there is much less potential for absorbing so much of the stain. This well brushed out coat of stain is then quickly dried with a hot air gun which also sets the watery coat of paint, which was first applied and the has not been any oportunity for raising the grain.

I like to add any extra stain afterwards if the colour needs darkening and after this has dried, I liberably brush this over with wax and stipple some watered down grey emulsion paint into the unset wax, rub it around with a piece of paper kitchen towel and wipe away most of the wash impregnated wax a set, what remains by heating it up with a hot air gut, which evaporate the remaining solvent in the wax and after it has cooled down it is a fairly durable surface, without any obvious brush marks. At this stage, it usually looks really great. I like to get this a final top coat of dead flat (matt) acrylic wax finish varnish, which I also set with a hot air gun and a quick once over with a lttle bit of neutral was, which slightly tones down the totally matt finish.

Others use other methods to tone down the wood grain and block the pores in the wood. Most of these methods are pretty much equally valid and have the desired effect. It often takes a bit more filling of the flecks in Obeche to hide the flecks, but the principle is much to sane. Obeche is a rather bland looking wood and making it look more interesting by added a fake wood graining effect can be somewhat less than easy. Generally my dragged wood grain finished, look much the same. I dont much like doing dragged finishes the normal way, but like to drag the brush marks in to a clear acrylic medium over an already painted base coat a fill in the dragged groves in the clear medium for other colours, rub back the groves a little bit and add a slightly foggy acrylic matt varnish on top fooled by a light coat of neutral wax. I'm not sure that it looks like any particular variety of wood grain, but it goes down quite well with the customers, so I guess it's o.k.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Dark stain

Post by Justintime »

I used spirit stains for the first few years, very convenient but tricky after a few coats, it starts to lift.
Dermot got me into water based stains and the ability to add in acrylics for depth or warmth. I haven't looked back.
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