“Staining and finishing are the easy part”…Famous. Last. Words.

In my last video I ended by saying, staining and finishing the leg I was making were easy and boring so I didn’t film them. Well, let me tell you, I tried and failed miserably to match and only through a last ditch effort was I able to recover the stain of this leg before I had to remake a new one.

What Happened:
After working with a test piece, I found that the stain I wanted required a pre-stain + 2 coats of my chosen stain. I started with the pre-stain, all went well, then I applied the actual stain, all seemed to go well. I wiped off the stain and…all of the stain came off except a few flecks of stain. AND on only 1.5 of 4 sides, did the stain take at all.

Applied my second coat, to no avail
Sanded it down and reapplied stain, to no avail
Applied a new, darker, gel stain for 9x the recommended maximum time, it worked.

What I Learned:
1. Try to match your original wood. It will absorb stain the same way and look more like the piece you’re trying to match
2. If you’re using pine, just make a few extra if you can, just in case. It’s easy when you have everything setup, much harder later.
3. Gel stain is recommended to pine and vertical faces
4. Rather than trying to match, if you can replace all of them, just do that. Matching is easier when you’re doing all of the work.

I hope you can learn from my mistakes and have better success in future projects!

Have a great week!

Josh
Northwest Craftsman

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Audio Credits:
Room for Two by Dan Lebowitz (Licensed by YouTube Audio Library)

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