Build You Own (BYO) TV Stand - Page 38

Originally Posted by rain2

Hey all. It's been a few days, but I ran out of veneer due to my mistake earlier in the project and just realizing it near the end of the veneer. Well, I decided to make the legs and test stain a scrap panel and I need help! How do you get a flat, smooth spray paint on wood without the grain showing? Was I supposed to do something else? I definitely need help as you can see the legs didn't turn out so well. If i Just need to keep putting on multiple coats till its' smooth, then I'm o.k with that. I have time to keep putting on more. =) Now, as for the stain, I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but there's a rather LARGE round spot in the middle of the board; faint, but it's there. Do you call that splotching or is that something else? I followed the procedure of sanding my final grit, used distilled water to raise the grain, then stained after completely dry. (using Homestead Transfast Dye). If you could give me an idea of what that spot could be, I'd appreciate it. And so, here's my progress photos.
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Originally Posted by rain2

I'm using 220 grit sand paper as my final step. I've read in many places it's not necessary to go any further due to the wood being Maple. The only reason is looks kind of rough is because I forgot to lightly sand the raised grain before applying the stain, but I can't imagine the raised grain would cause something like that, would it? I'm still going to get a water-based preconditioner from Home Depot and see how that works compared to normal distilled water, as preferred by the company that makes the Dye. Will let everyone know how it turns out. Thanx for the advice.

Originally Posted by rain2

You know what, I did check out your link, but I ended up buying the water-based conditioner...and didn't think about the shellac...I'll have to go back and get that since I've seen the difference on the web page. It'll take more coats, but even staining is what I'm concerned about. Thanx for reminding me.
Oh, as for the legs, I've been priming it with a Kilnz Latex primer and seems to be doing pretty well. I'm on my 5th coat to try to get rid of the wood grain look. I'm almost tempted to just dump a bucket of primer over it and let whatever stays dry on there to get an even smooth coat. =) Well, a few more coats and I'm sure I can finally spray paint it chrome to get a metallic look for the legs. Hopefully it turns out well. Will post pics of the shellac and staining tomorrow.

Originally Posted by rain2

Good Morning all,
Just tried to do something different with the sealcoat this morning by sanding the sheen off of the shellac after the 15 minute drying time and then added the stain; didn't do any better than the first time around. Adding a 2nd coat of stain to the Minwax-conditioned board made it look pretty good; might put a top-coat on it to see the end-result, although it looks like it's blocking some of the grain of the wood, so I'm not sure, but we'll see.
I think I'll give the sealcoat one more shot by getting some Denatured Alchohol and follow the instructions on the can, instead of the website. It'll probably reduce the shellac to a 1# and maybe that'll help let the stain through the shellac a little better, but we'll see. I 'll try that tonight, but here's the results of my test this morning.

Originally Posted by kagolu

I may be wrong but if your using water based stain you can only use it with water based poly. I think you may want to try a base of shellac, sand, use an oil based stain(1 or more coats) then use shellac, tung oil(my choice, and I prefer satin wipe on) or poly(I prefer wipe on as well) as a finish.

Its a pain I know but when you get it right you'll realize it was worth the effort and you'll have a piece you'll be happy with for years to come. Don't get discouraged.

Originally Posted by rain2

Well, I read in many places that using a water based poly will make the water-based stain "bleed", so all the sites I've visited stated to use an oil-based and even got recommendation from Woodcraft to use oil over water to protect the stain since they can't mix.

Now here's one thing I was thinking about on my way to work, since this is made out of plywood and the Maple portion is only 1/4" thick, will the shellac pretty much be covering the entire surface?? I know plywood and regular wood absorb stains at a much different rate with the plywood absoring much more to become darker (and possibly show more blotching)...just a thought.

As for this morning, I did add a 2nd and 3rd coat of stain on the 1:1 DNA and Seal-Coat test board. Looks 'o.k.' but still not as good as I was expecting. Maybe I'm not sanding well enough after it dries for 15 minutes? Should I be sanding as much as I was trying to sand the surface smooth before adding the shellac? I'm almost tempted to just tint the shellac with my dye (if I am able to mix) and let that be my stain, then coat with poly for top-coat. Another option is to go back to distilled water and sand VERY well after it dries, dilute my current dye to make it lighter and try that. I never imagined it would take this much work to get the stain right. It's actually worse than making the entire unit! Will try more and more tonight. Hopefully I have enough scrap wood to continue testing or I'm in trouble....