Americana Gel Stains

I am doing a bit of procrastinating right now and choosing not to start on the third and final floor of Dalton House.  Partly because I don't want to finish it and then have to decide whether to go on to another project or not!!!! and partly because I haven't actually come up with a decent set of plans for this loft apartment.  As in real life, with these sort of loft conversions, I am trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot.

So, for now, I want to make up some more furniture kits for various places in the house.

I am always pretty unhappy about the final finish on these things.  In an effort to improve this, I thought I would have a go with something other than my usual traditional spirit based wood-stain followed by polyurethane varnish.

I came across Gel stains looking through a Minwax site.  I wish we could get Minwax products (full range and right price) in the UK.  Anyway, having spotted gel stains, I did some reading up on them and began to wonder if this was the way forward.

Like most paints/stains these days they come in spirit based and water based versions.  I always opt for water-based for easy clean up.  Some would argue water-based is not the way to go when dealing with wood.  I find water-based or spirit-based wood will always need denibbing and can warp if it has a tendency to do that which ever is applied.  I didn't want the usual pint or more (from DIY stores) for a few teeny furniture items.  Happily I managed to find small pots (2 oz?) made by Americana.  I already have some of their acrylic paints and they seem fine, so it was worth a punt.

In the UK I could only get three colours and even that required a bit of a search.  They came from someone called Buddly Crafts.  Totally unknown to me but the price was fine (£2.49 plus VAT)   Three bottles plus postage came to £10.49 - not exactly small beer but a long term solution if they work.

fingers crossed

left to right - oak, walnut, maple

I rummaged out some off-cuts from skirting and the experiment began with trying to ascertain how many coats I would need to get a decent finish.

Looks like it needs three.  It is easy and quick to do if you cheat and don't wait long enough between coats!!  Paint on with a brush just as you would any other paint and wipe off the excess.  You should then allow an hour before adding the next coat.....needless to say my hour measured about ten minutes.  I decided when it didn't feel tacky any more that would be fine.

You can see there is a real difference on each layer.

They were lovely to use, much easier that nasty old smelly spirit-based wood-stain.  They seem to have a pigment which sits more on top of the wood than actually soaking in so they feel like a cross between a paint and a stain.  They have a more even coverage than ordinary stain and went on easily with a small brush.

After three coats they dry to a very slight sheen but they did look as though they needed a bit more of a glow. You might get away with waxing it but I am too lazy to go there.

I then wondered which varnish to apply.  I usually use a water based satin varnish from B & Q but decided to stay in the realm of little bottles. I had these bottles in my drawer - brought home from the States and my brief affair with quarter scale!

ignore the triple thick one

 In the photo below I doubt you can see any difference between the gloss on the left side of the stain and the satin on the right side of the stain.  Even in real life it is pretty subtle other than the gloss didn't go on as easily as the satin and would need a rub down and another coat.  I did this after the photo was taken, but the difference is so infinitesimal its not worth showing you.

left side gloss, right side satin

After this I also did a bit of a naughty and tipped all three bottles into a small glass jar so now I don't actually have a satin or a gloss.  I assume I now have a glatin? or a sloss? - it will be fine.  Basically I think they are all the same animal - the satin being thinned down and very runny and the gloss more 'condensed' and a bit gloppy to apply.

I am very tempted to do the same with the three wood stains**.  There is only the subtlest difference in the colours and I am already faffing about which one to choose.

The real point of all this is that I am trying to find a way of staining wooden kits and get a decent even finish  However, what you can see clearly on this test is that the nasty effect you get applying stain to poor quality wood, namely flecks, is still happening.

Having read this, I may have a solution: 

'When using on wood, you can mix 25% Multi-Purpose Sealer with 75% Americana Gel Stain to seal and stain at the same time.'

 I have sent for the Multi-Purpose sealer so watch this space.



(20/08/17)

** Yup, I mixed them up too - all together in a glass jar. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here it is:

 In real world you can buy all sorts of wood sealers but as usual you gets far too much of the stuff for us mini folk.  It seemed sensible to give this teeny one a go.   Made by Americana again and, in this case, sold by Country Crafts.  This is another new to me vendor and the service was fine and gets a good rating on Facebook.

OK:  a site I saw this on said mix 25:75 sealer and stain.  The bottle says mix 50:50 - so going with the bottle instructions,  I duly mixed fifty/fifty.  Starting at A (the right way up)  you are looking at one, two and then three coats of this mix.

I still had flecks so thought I would try applying the sealer first and then three coats of stain.  You can see the result of that on the small left-hand upside-down section of the trim.  Still flecky.

The top piece of wood shows the three coats I did before I got the sealer and the strip below is three coats of fifty/fifty stain and sealer.  It has finished up a much lighter shade so the sealer must be working in some way.  Just not the way I want.

Again, the top piece of wood shows the three coats of stain without any sealer and the strip below shows where the sealer was applied first and then three coats of stain added.  Again, this is lighter than the no sealer piece and, again, is still flecky.

Conclusion:   

• If you are still awake, all I can say is there doesn't seem much point to the sealer either applied before or mixed in with the gel stain before coating.  Most importantly none of them with or without sealer seem to help with the flecky finish that I am particularly trying to avoid.

• However, the gel stain is as good as..... or as bad as......the more usual spirit based wood stain in terms of coverage but it goes on easier and cleaner and clean up after is easier.  So, I am very happy to use the gel stain.  I will probably also use the sealer (as I have bought it!) and I quite like the lighter finish.

This will be miles more interesting when I get to make some actual furniture and see what happens on that wood.

(28/08/17)