# Need some help with stain, not sure what happened



## ponch37300 (Feb 27, 2008)

I did a couple little projects this past week, two projects were some clocks I was trying to finish. I bought some minwax stain, shade was fruitwood. The first project was just a precut piece of wood from hobby lobby. Little back story here, my little brother was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago and he wanted something to do with his time since he isn't going to school anymore this year. So I went to hobby lobby and bought a bunch of clock parts and a few different cut outs so we could start putting some things together to get ideas on what works best and then we will make our own from start to finish.

So I finished the first piece, just a cut out stained in the minwax fruitwood and a letter cut out of the word "faith" stained in sedona red, both just the minwax basic stain in yellow can. Before the stain I used a minwax prestain wood conditioner. Finished with two coats of minwax poly. Here is a pic.









The second project was a "slice" of a log with the bark still on. I routed out an oval for a picture and a clock will go above. After all the router recesses were done I used the minwax pre stain wood conditioner. Then the same fruitwood stain I used for the other porject. The stain seemed to just soak into the wood, never had anything to wipe off. It looks totally different then the first project, it turned out a greenish brown turd looking! What happened?









I'm not a finisher. Usually keep it basic using some stain and poly. Never had anything turn out like this before. Any advice on what went wrong or other products/procedures I should be doing instead? Any other ideas on different ways to finish projects like these?


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## chemmy (Dec 13, 2011)

Hi Ponch, common problem, well not a problem, but a typical feature of the wood cut. In the first pic, you have a flat grain surface and the other an end grain surface. end grain being almost all pores soaks up the stain/finish, etc.. much much more than the flat grain surfaces do. You can seal the end grain a couple of times with clear coating of your choice and then tint the clear with color and apply it, this will keep the color on top of the wood instead of being sucked into the wood ok? 

The reason you may be seeing a green color of sorts may be due to the natual color of the wood, if you have not stained the other side you can wet it down with mineral spirits and view to see if this is the case or not. poplar wood is one common wood that has green in it naturally.

Any time you have wood cut with the end grain, it will soak up any moisture from any source.it is like the vains in a plant in which the fluid naturally travels. :yes:


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## ponch37300 (Feb 27, 2008)

chemmy said:


> Hi Ponch, common problem, well not a problem, but a typical feature of the wood cut. In the first pic, you have a flat grain surface and the other an end grain surface. end grain being almost all pores soaks up the stain/finish, etc.. much much more than the flat grain surfaces do. You can seal the end grain a couple of times with clear coating of your choice and then tint the clear with color and apply it, this will keep the color on top of the wood instead of being sucked into the wood ok?
> 
> The reason you may be seeing a green color of sorts may be due to the natual color of the wood, if you have not stained the other side you can wet it down with mineral spirits and view to see if this is the case or not. poplar wood is one common wood that has green in it naturally.
> 
> Any time you have wood cut with the end grain, it will soak up any moisture from any source.it is like the vains in a plant in which the fluid naturally travels. :yes:


Thank you for the education.

When you say I can seal the end grain with a few coats of clear of my choice, what would be my choices? I don't have a lot of experience with finishing. Then would I just use a stain on top of the clear or what do you mean by tint the clear?

With wood like this that turns green will it still turn green if I just use a poly and no stain?


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## chemmy (Dec 13, 2011)

ponch37300 said:


> Thank you for the education.
> 
> When you say I can seal the end grain with a few coats of clear of my choice, what would be my choices? I don't have a lot of experience with finishing. Then would I just use a stain on top of the clear or what do you mean by tint the clear?
> 
> With wood like this that turns green will it still turn green if I just use a poly and no stain?


Your choices? Well..... if your new to this, i would suggest polyurethane, like minwax fast dry poly at Loews or home depot. you can thin it if you like with mineral spirits to flow better. 25% would be plenty or less if it soaks in to much. 

instead of thinner you could buy the minwax stains of the color you like and add a little to the poly to give you a color tint, do this after the pores are pretty well filled [ 3 coats], sand in between coats with 320 grit paper to remove all the gloss. that's for proper adhesion. OK?

sincerely,

chemmy


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## ponch37300 (Feb 27, 2008)

chemmy said:


> Your choices? Well..... if your new to this, i would suggest polyurethane, like minwax fast dry poly at Loews or home depot. you can thin it if you like with mineral spirits to flow better. 25% would be plenty or less if it soaks in to much.
> 
> instead of thinner you could buy the minwax stains of the color you like and add a little to the poly to give you a color tint, do this after the pores are pretty well filled [ 3 coats], sand in between coats with 320 grit paper to remove all the gloss. that's for proper adhesion. OK?
> 
> ...


Thanks chemmy.

Tonight when I got home from work the green had lightened a little so it didn't look like pure dog crap. So I decided to just put a few coats of poly on and see what happens. It won't be the prettiest but it was a learning process so a success in my book.


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## chemmy (Dec 13, 2011)

ponch37300 said:


> Thanks chemmy.
> 
> Tonight when I got home from work the green had lightened a little so it didn't look like pure dog crap. So I decided to just put a few coats of poly on and see what happens. It won't be the prettiest but it was a learning process so a success in my book.


 
Your welcome


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