Patio Door gone bad

[masterz]

I recently installed a patio door, with pine interior. I wanted to match the rest of the trim in the room, so headed to Home Depot to find some stain. I purchased two cans of Minwax stains, which looked fine in the store, but they didn't match once I tried on a test piece (random piece of 1x3, sanded). I then tried Rockler and found a good match, General Finishes Pecan (water based). I asked the guy there if he thought I needed a conditioner. He said no....

I tried it on my test piece, it was a good match. I then tried it on my door. As you can probably guess, it's totally uneven. The color is still a fair match, though it varies widely in darkness. If I knew it was going to be this way, I would have just put poly on and let it not match. The raw pine looked really nice.

Since it's water based, I was able to rub much of it off, but there's still plenty of uneveness. So, do I sand, seal, re-apply? I probably won't be able to get rid of all the existing stain by sanding. Do I try a different stain, like a gel? They didn't have such a close match for gel. Any other tips?

[thewoodwhisperer]

Definitely time for a sanding if you ask me. The grain is probably raised from the water-based stain and cleanup, so you are going to want to sand it smooth anyway. Get the surface as close to possible to clean raw wood. If it looks good and you just want to get it over with, go ahead and give it a few coats of finish and call it done. But, if you are up for the challenge, you certainly can stain the door. Now traditionally, I go the shellac sealer/oil-based gel stain route. But more and more I am liking the idea of using Charles Neils water-based conditioner followed by water-based dyes/stains. No one can explain it better than the man himself so check this out:

By the way, embedding a YouTube video is very easy. Just go to the YouTube page, copy the URL, click the "insert media" button above the post box on the forum, and paste the URL in.

[masterz]

It's certainly worth a try. I should have listened to my intuition, but the test piece threw me off since it looked good there. I just hope it's not too late.

[PaulMarcel]

The Charles Neil conditioner is pretty good; I've used it on two small projects lately, but it was on blotchy Poplar and worked well.

For cleaning your door, here's some ideas... the Minwax stain might be a combination of dye and pigment. The dye will have absorbed further into the soft pine. You can typically bleach out the dye, which may get you much further along your cleanup. Then you can concentrate on sanding off the top layer where the pigments are lodged. Bleaching will also raise the grain which will make sanding that top layer easier. You can bleach with, duh, bleach or oxylic acid often sold as "wood bleach" at Minnesota-based woodworking stores The stuff is also amazing for cleaning a stainless-steel sinks; with a caking compound, it's sold as Barkeeper's Best Friend.

I'd even consider finding a cabinet shop or full-service hardwood dealer with a wide-belt sander and have them run it through. it'll come out level (no dishing) and take most of the sanding work out of it. You'll just need to follow up with a ROS and higher grits.

[mmgross144]

Jason,

Paul-Marcel's and Marc's inputs are worth their weight in gold, but sanding will be needed. Hopefully you will get enough out to salvage the door. I haven't tried Charles' product (but will!) but he hasn't steered me wrong yet so I would go with it. If you can't wait for it to arrive, I have found great results with preconditioning with Zinsser Seal-Coat Shellac. Apply a coat (if you pad it on you can watch it absorb & add more where it absorbs more quickly), let it dry, and sand it with 320. Perhaps as a fail-safe you should stick to gel stains or a heavier stain such as Old Masters Full-Bodied Wiping Stain which do not absorb as quickly. I have frequently found that color matching takes tweeking the stain with a tint (such as Mixol tints) or layering one color stain atop another, remembering that the first stain absorbs the deepest. Experiment on a similar species of wood if at all possible. Good Luck!

[masterz]

This is a factory made glass patio door with a wood frame, so no chance taking it to a shop. A belt sander would just chew it up anyway. I tried a sanding block in one area and was able to make some good progress. I'll try a random orbit sander soon. The bleach is a great idea if there's anything left. I ordered Charles's conditioner and will try it out. Thanks for all the ideas.

[masterz]

So far, so good. It actually sanded out very well. I was a little concerned I would have to remove too much, but it's turned out ok, back to bare wood. There was no need to bleach.

I wish I had some dust collection in my kitchen though.

I should have taken some pics so I could post some before/after shot here, but too late. Hopefully it'll turn out well and I'll at least post an 'after' shot.

[masterz]

Ok, so I'm a little lazy in getting pictures off of my camera. Here's what it looks like. The only spot where there was still some blotchiness is the top of the left door. Overall, it ended up matching pretty well. Those light squares on the top molding are from the brackets for the old shades. These are "temporary" paper shades.

Jason

[Bobby Slack]

Marc ... I finally understood blotching and why it happens.