# Failed stain



## crquack (Oct 10, 2008)

I turned a piece out of Douglas fir (?) and wanted to stain it red mahogany. I got a Varathane gel stain which worked for me before.

I applied two coats as I was not entirely happy with the uniformity of the first (I did not use a wood conditioner, according to Flexner you need not with gel stains and indeed previous results on soft wood were OK). I followed the instructions on the can.

I let it dry for 16 hours and tried to top-coat it with Wipe-on Poly. To my dismay a large portion of the stain came off and the stain now looks nasty and blotchy. I applied two more coats of poly to see if the piece will become "interesting" but it is just nasty.

So the question is: How do you start again? Do you:

1) Sand off the poly and the superficial layer of stain, apply wood conditioner, re-stain, top-coat with spray-on poly (which is what I used before - I should have stuck to what works!)

2) Turn the piece down so that no stain is showing (I would rather not!) and repeat the staining procedure as in (1)

3) Forget it, there is no way to save it.

Just as I hit the "post" button I had a further thought: The piece had been soaked in Pentacryl for 3 days and dried subsequently. Usually I monitor the drying process by watching for spots on the paper the piece is standing on. This time there were none. However, the drying process took only a week. I did wash the piece with acetone but I cannot help wondering how the Pentacryl treatment affected the whole staining process (it is not supposed to according to manufacturer).


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## dutchman 46 (May 23, 2007)

Well? I would not know of a reason that You could have that happen? mmm ? Did You check that both products were water, or solvent based? How long have You had these two components around? Were they stirred well ? Did, or could have You, or somebody added, or put some thing in the stain, and not told You. I can not imagine that happening. Did You clean Your project with a precleaner before you added stain, or clear to the project? I don't know if You will ever get a good explanation about what happened with out a factory reps input. My question to Him would be" Have You ever seen anything like that"? If any one would know, it would be the factory Representative. I hope that You can get an answer on that. Good luck!


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