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Universal Tints compatible with most water, solvent, lacquer and oil based stains, coatings, shellacs, epoxies, waxes, varnishes, wood fillers, etc. Using these tints can make matching the stain color of a finish repair in a furniture finish much easier than mixing stains.

If you seal the wood before you stain, then there is nothing for the stain to soak into and you end up with a smeary unstained appearance. Sealing after staining is a very good idea, some stains will bleed through a finish giving an undesirable appearance and it is a good idea to seal them in. Besides, using a sanding sealer, you can sand it with a very fine sandpaper to give a very good, very smooth surface to apply the final finish to. Be sure that you use a sanding sealer compatible with your stain and with the final finish product.

Different Finishes

You have gone through the difficult part, stripping and preparing your project, now it's time for the final step, applying a finish.

There are many products available for finishes, some very hard and some quite soft. Some will give more protection than others, but some pieces of furniture don't get very hard use, so will do fine with a less protective finish.

Wood Stain

Staining wood furniture is generally a necessity after you strip and prepare it. If you don't stain the piece it will quite often look uneven in color or kind of blotchy. An exception to this is a clear finish over light color wood that you want to have a natural appearance.

The Finish

Flexing

Your furniture does a boogey woogey all day long. The only thing is that it's drummer is very slow moving so you can't see it happening. As temperatures change, the whole piece expands with heat and contracts with less heat.

Exposed bare wood is very susceptible to moisture changes. If you have electric baseboard or forced air heating it's very dry.

Every time someone takes a bath or shower, even with venting, or when you fix meals there is a teriffic uprise in humidity.

The exposed bare wood expands, then the air dries from the heating system, so there is constant expansion and contraction, but the other side with a finish sealing it isn't as susceptible to the ups and downs of humidity all day.

The warp and wane of the bare wood puts stress on the finish and joints on furniture. Natural finishes, lacquer, shellac, oils, etc. are flexible and can withstand the constant stretching, shrinking, and twisting. That's part of the reason for joints loosening and why hard inflexible polyurethane will crack along a joint line.

Polyurethane

If you have read anywhere else on this site, you probably have figured out that polyurethane is not one of my favorite finishes to use on furniture. Although there have been improvements in polyurethane, it still is a hard plastic coating that doesn't have much give. If you are working on an antique and you use sandpaper and polyurethane, you no longer have a proveable antique and the antique value will drop through the floor.

Oil Finishes

There are many different kinds of oil finishes, some are easy to use and some are very time consuming.

Linseed Oil, Boiled

Linseed Oil was the choice of the old timers.

I put the boiled after the linseed oil to draw attention to it rather than to indicate that there will be other types covered. The other type is raw linseed oil, it will never dry, but will become gummy and sticky, so be sure to get BOILED linseeed oil if you decide on that kind of finish.

Linseed oil gives a fantastic finish, but you need a year to apply it. The general rule of thumb for a linseed oil finish is once an hour for a day, once a day for a week, once a week for a month and once a month for a year. The finish was usually french polished once a year after that. That's a lot of work.

Other Oils

The other oils are much easier to use. Danish Oil and Tung Oil are two popular oil finishes. They are very easy to use and come in clear and in pigmented colors. Just follow the directions on the container, but double the number or coats they recommend. They aren't as durable as some other finishes, but are very easy to repair. If you get a light scratch in the finish, just grab a cloth and apply another coat of the finish and generally it's all taken care of.

Shellac

Shellac is a good durable finish, except that it is very susceptible to water and alcohol. Alcohol dissolves shellac.

Lacquer

Last, but not least, is my favorite, lacquer. Lacquer is a very durable finish, is flexible and is very easy to keep up.

Regular lacquer can only be applied with spray equipment, but it isn't necessary to have expensive spray equipment, you can get some reasonably priced airless spray equipment. You can use spray cans of lacquer and get a nice smooth even finish. There is a product called brushing lacquer, which is treated to extend it's drying time so it can be brushed. Lacquer is one thing that is fast, but is also good.

About the only mistake you can make using brushing lacquer is to apply it too thinly or to overbrush. If you apply a good liberal coat and let it dry properly, it will flow together so there are no brush marks or other imperfections. If you do have imperfections dust or bugs, it is very easy to work them out with very fine sandpaper and 0000 steel wool.

Like with all products be sure to read the directions on the container and follow them for best results.

Lasting Finish

Our dining room set is from around the turn of the last century (sounds strange having to define which century, but then it's going to be a real headshaker in a short time when I have to say , "yep, I came along about a third of the way through the last century". I guess a century isn't such a long time after all.) We restored the finish on our set about 25 years ago with a lacquer finish. We have never used waxes or polish of any kind, just clean with a damp cloth and wipe dry with a soft cloth and it has a beautiful sheen. It looks better than it did when we first did it and should last for another 50 years at least.

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