Products to stain barefaced oak

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Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Products to stain barefaced oak

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Dermot,

It might not take ages to get things right. I've got a bit more practice that I have not actually mentioned when I was a bookbinder, paper conservitor and restorer of antique and historic documents for an antique books, documents and memorabilia dealer in Portsmouth, learned to decorate leather bookbindings with gold leaf, guiding the fore edges of pages in books and repairing of illumiated letters on old ducuments. Bookbinders don't gild onto gesso, but apart from that much of the rest is the same. I needed to do this at a time, when I was out of a job due to illness at the time and the owner of the business offer the chance to do some work for him and I bought the necessary tools, materials and some books teaching the subject from a major bookbinding supplier, which was at that time in Park Royal, West London and just got started.

I also was a part time antique furniture restorer at one time in Surrey, when I was out of work again due to illness at another time. I've had a few changes of direction in what I did as a career during the various times that I was ill over the years. My chosen career and the job that I most wanted was as a design engineer. As an engineer, I worked for several radio, television and imaging related companies, then I worked for the defence industry, several automotive companies, a railway systems company, a formula one engineering companies, two major telecommunications companies and an underground radar systems company which made underground remote survey systems. One day, I got made redundant and I could not easily walk into another engineering job.

I've largely doing my own thing as self employed ever since and somehow I ended up doing this. It was not anything which wasever planned, itsort of happened, at the time I had not long been married and I needed to do something to provide for my wife and myself. I did not really have much idea what I was letting myself in for either. About 27 years later, I'm still here. my wife says she married me for richer, or poorer and much poorer. We've been through some very difficult times during those years. My wife has had a whole lot of serious operations and more recently a stroke and I've had a heart attack and two strokes. In the last twenty years, I've sort of lost the urge to keep doing new and different things, so picture framing will be my last job, but I am still an engineer at heart none the less!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Products to stain barefaced oak

Post by Not your average framer »

Going back to discussions about Chestnut sirit based stains, I don't think that there is much doubt about it that Chestnut spirit based stains penetrate very well into nicely figured hardwoods and serve to emphasis the woodgrain particularly well. However they also seal the surface of the wood, which then prevent the wood from absorbing other treatments, such as boilied linseed oil from deeply penetrating into the wood and "creating that lite" from within effect. On the other hand, soaking and saturating the wood with boiled linseed oil first can prevent the same level of penetration, if the Chestnut spirit based stain is applied at a later stage in the process. The effects of both processes, or both advantageous in there own ways. Spirit based woodstains are almost always dye based, as opposed to pigment based and as a result tend to highlight the existing woodgrain, where as water based stains are almost always pigment based and can tend to slightly muddy the degree of definition of the same manifestation of that wood grain. I think that it's still true that the traditional old fashioned mehods of woodstaining and woodfinish still produce the authenetic superior result, but doing it properly take a lot longer.

I don't claim to fully understand, the historical development of woodstains, but uninspired use of acrylic based wood stains can far too easily create a very unfortunate "slightly plastically look". At least this does not tend to happen, when using spirit based dye formulated woodstains. Of course their is none the less a practical reality, which has a lot to do will the current popularity of the acrylic baed woodstain and relates to both convenience and the saving of time. In times gone by, the wood would be deeply impegnated with boiled linseed oil and later sealedwith an oil base varnish, or a paste wax. I personally don't thing that spirit based stains are particularly beneficial for use with pine and as I use pine quite a lot acrylic woodstain varnishes of the Polyvine acrylic wax finish variety are usually my "go to" stock woodstain. To suggest that this is the best woodstain is not particularly true, but since it is already very helpful to mask and disgise the somewhat inferior looking pine wood grain with water based subtile paint washes, the something like the Polyvine Acrylic wax finish varnish tend to work really well as part of the overall treatment process.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
NikiH
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat 23 Apr, 2022 2:24 pm
Location: Rutland
Organisation: eFrame
Interests: Art, gardening, restaurants, France

Re: Products to stain barefaced oak

Post by NikiH »

Thanks all this has been so helpful!
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Products to stain barefaced oak

Post by Not your average framer »

This subject comes up every now at then, so it's well worth looking out for when it next comes along. Many of us have our own preferred ways on doing things and are often creatures of habit, but plenty of new information gets mentioned too. I'm pleaesed that you found it helpful.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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