Staining bare wood mouldings.

[Not your average framer]

I normally only stain Ash, Oak, or Pine and get reasonable results, I am thinking about staining obeche as well, but I've got a vauge idea in my mind that obeche might not be very easy to stain and was just wonderng if anyone can tell me if this is true? I normally use water based stains, these no particular reason for this, it's just what I am used to, but I'm wondering if spirit stains cover as well particularly on obeche. I suppose one of the main reasons that I have used water based stains so far is that I can use stains which include a top coal varnish sealer with the wood stain included and this is an all in one finish. My usual favorite is the Polyvine combined stain and wax finish acrlic varnish.

Can anyone suggest wether trying the spirit stain option is likely to be not a worth the bother, particularly on obeche. I currently need to decide wether to invest in most of the colours in the Polyvine range,or go for some spirit based stains instead. These are for some basic frames. Some will be basic frames and some will be more up market, but I'm looking to save money by buying a couple of bare wood moulding and doing a quick finishing job, straight from stock. The main moulding in question is intend to be a basic 20mm x 17.5mm plain flat obeche moulding, which I'm expecting to be a nice moulding, I already buy this same moulding in oak and I have found the quality of the oak version to be excellent.

I could have chosen the Pine version which is a little cheaper, but I am assuming that the obeche, will look more modern and contemporary, which hopefully will appeal to different customers. Any thoughts and suggestions will be most helpful and I will be grateful for any advice.

Many thanks,
Mark.

[Gesso&Bole]

I have found that staining obeche with spirit or water based stain results in a flat, and often blotchy finish that is neither attractive or consistent.

Paint and wax is the answer for obeche

[Not your average framer]

Thanks Jeremy,

I should have remember that, but I'm still a bit flakey on remembering all that i should after my stroke. I suspected that there was some reason why I thought that staining obeche was a problem. That is very helpful to be reminded of that. Now I remember that Pete Bingham taught me how to condition obeche to stop this happening. He used watered down paint to block the pores in the wood as the soak into the blochy bits. I should have remembered this as I used the same techniqued to tone down the grain in pine mouldings. The grain is still there, but it's a lot more subtile somehow it looks more classy than stained pine usually looks. Maybe experimenting with a mixture of both paint and varnish might be a good move, so that I can get a opaque finish, but with the comination of a slight gloss to avoid needing to apply wax afterwards.

Thank very much,
Mark.

[pramsay13]

I regularly stain obeche using water based stains.

I give them 2 or 3 coats and then wax finish.

[prospero]

It's a bit of a hiding to nothing trying the stain Obeche. As the others have said it can look very blotchy, particularly
with spirit stain. Even if you did get it even it looks a bit sad. Best reserved for painted/gilded stuff.

I do some very nice faux-woodgrain finishes on Obeche using the basecoat/dragged wash method.

[Not your average framer]

I don't really do faux woodgrain finishes, it's not really my thing! I'm more into a little bit of graining with a bronze brush and stuff like that, I also filling and distress bronze brush texture wood a bit when the brushed wood looks right. I've got some tins of liming wax and other special effects waxes, but to be honest, I can't usually be bothered to use them very much. If it's an effect that takes a bit of time and effort, I think that getting a price that reflects the time and effort is often like trying to get blood out of a stone.

Getting decent money to cover your work is not as easy as it once was. Too many customers keep trying to beat you down on price. It seems to be what many of them seem to expect these days. Apparently there are people on TV and on the internet telling people how to go about knock you down. Now I'm a pensioner I have got fed up with all this haggling over prices business and can't be doing with such people. I tell them that my prices are more than fair and if they don't like them to go and see if they can get better prices elsewhere.

I put a lot of effort in to getting my finishing techniques right and don't think much of people trying it on! After a heart attack and two strokes, I am affaid that I don't suffer such people gladly and I am not much bothered wether I get the sale, or not. Pay the proper price, or get lost!

[vintage frames]

As you'd expect, I have to disagree with everyone here.

You can stain and finish obeche quite successfully. I've made hundreds of wood finished obeche frames for both high end art galleries and mass market 'ready frames'.

I'm not going to bore you with the details as your eyes would soon glaze over before we're halfways through the process but if you want to learn more then read a good book on antique wood finishing. Forget the internet. There's nothing on-line. Don't ask me why!

[Not your average framer]

Hi Dermot,

Yes, you are right! I've just pulled out my copy of "The complete manual of wood finishing" by Frederick Oughton F.R.S.A.(1982). There's a lot of old fashioned stain recipes with strange sounding ingredients, but maybe there's some valuable clues there which can be fairly easily adapted to more easily available ingredients. As you no doubt won't be surprised Vandyke brown gets in to more than just a few of these receipes. There is lots of different colours of stains and how to make them. I've just copied out the names, just as they sound worth mentioning:

Oil Stains. Fumed Oak, Dark Oak, Golden Oak, Mission Oak, Weathered Oak, Early English, Brown Mahogany, Red Mohogany, Cherry, Rosewood, Malachite, Grey, Brown Flemish, Walnut, Jacobean, Antique Mahogany.

Spirit stains. Brown Oak, Bog Oak, Light Mahogany, Dark Mahogany, Flemish Oak, Moss Green.

Dry Aniline and Coal Tar Stains. Mahogany Fast Red, Mahogany Fast Brown, Walnut, Walnut R, Golden Oak, Bismarck Brown, Black Nigrosine J, Black Nigrosine WN, Yellow Acid HM, Orange Y, Scarlet 2 RB, Green M. X., Methylene Blue 2B, Fuchine Magenta RT, Violet 3 BPN.

Period Stain Finishes Acid (water) stain. Brown Hepplewhite, Chippendale, Sheraton, Colonial Mahogany, Baronial Oak, Cathedral Oak, Hungarian Oak, Antique Mahogany, Butler Oak, Old English, Kaiser Grey, Adam Brown, Fumed Oak, Flemish Oak, Austrian Oak, Mahogany.

Period Stain Finishes. Oil Stain Early English, Weathered Oak, Flanders Oak, Antwerp Oak, American Walnut, Jacobean, William and Mary, Louis XVI, Mission Stains, Queen Anne.

How's that for a list? I had pretty much forgotten all about this. It definitely makes for interesting reading!

Thanks Dermot, for reminding me to dig out this old book!

[fitz]

I find that I have to work very quickly with spirit stain and I like to apply it on complete lengths of moulding (including Obeche) using a paint pad with the short fibres. This seems to prevent hard edges occurring as it dries very quickly. A chestnut spirit stain finished with liming wax takes less than half an hour to complete and has proved quite popular with folks. It gives the wood a sort of peachy colour. I would like to learn more about wood finishing and will seek out a copy of that book or similar if I can get one. I’ve been a bit disappointed with some of the Palette Wood Dyes and will try some of the Polyvine range.

[Not your average framer]

Hi fitz,

The Polyvine acrylic wax finish varnish stains are a coloured varnish type stain, so they are somewhere between a stain and a varnish. I'm not sure if this is going to be exactly what you are looking for, or not. I like it very much my self, but that's me!

[vintage frames]

Here's a book that might inspire anyone who wants to either paint or wood-finish barewood mouldings,

https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/book ... mccloud/ke

Yes, it's him off the tele, Grand Designs.
There's a lot in there that can be adapted to hand-finishing picture frames.

My advice - view anything you see on the shelves of B&Q with the same caution that you should use to not eat anything you see advertised on TV.

[fitz]

Thanks for the info. I actually found and ordered the book that Mark mentioned. Used version but could be £6 well,spent.

[Not your average framer]

Hi Fitz,

When you get the book, you will need to translate some of the recipes into artist paint colours from some of the items, which is how I like to reproduce to colours. I have various books on paint colours, which enable me to see what these different colour names look like. I'm a bit of a cheat and tweek the colour of the nearest stain colour that I already have a little with a tiny touch of artists acrylic paint, or paints. It never takes very much to do this. ! also bought a big bag of Vandyke crystal which I disolve in hot water and also tweek the colour, if I need to again with artsts acrylic paints.

I seems to work well! I often get oak left over scraps, which won't match up well enough to use for the same frame. I stain these mainly with some Raw Umber and stain them to the colour of Mission Oak. This is a very helpful colour as it helps make inferior grain look O.K. and most of my Rustic Oak is stained this colour. Mission Oak is a very common colour for oak furniture as seen in antique shops. Most modern day stains look a bit artificial and are often much more authenic if tweeked slightly to be the right colour in combination with the unstained starting colour of whatever wood you are staining.

I have no idea how many people would agree with this, but I produce a reasonable number of stained frames and it is my belief that authentic wood stain colours are a very significant factor in wether customers like a frame, or not. If a frame is meant to look like a natural finish, I think that it is essential that it does not like even slightly artificial! Even most totally un-Knowledgible people can tell the difference between something which looks natural and something which looks artificial. Also unless you know how to compensate for this, many synthetic finishes can look like plastic instead of wood.

It can take a while to get the feel for creating really nice natural wood finishes, but a lot is mostly practice, experience and having spent time looking at the real thing. I used to buy small bits of furniture from the auctions to do up and then resell again in the auctions. Well lots of buyers at the auctions can spot if something looks authentic, or not straight away and it's only the authentic looking items, which make top money. I think that the same is true with creating really classy wood finishes on picture frames.

[fitz]

Thanks for the information Mark. Looking forward to some experimentation.

[Not your average framer]

Hi fitz,

You might like to consider while you are experimenting to try some of the stained and subtilly washed effects while you sometimes see on older period pine items. As you may have already understood, I do quite a bit of this sort of stuff and it can be quite popular if you are in the right location. The washes need to be really rather subtile as stippled in to wax and then rubbed back to produce just the right level of effect.

[Not your average framer]

I do quite a bit of painting / staining of pine mouldings and it's not always particularly simple or straight forward. Some parts of the pine grain are not very absorbent and do not absorb the stain very well at all, in such cases I have little alternative, but to do a mix ot stain and paint, or seperate thn layers of paints and stain. When this happens it can be a right pain in the neck, as your never sure how long it's going to take to get it sorted. The process for lighter and darker stains can need a different approach for each.

It can be helpful to slightly char the pine before staining and I have tried a little bit of this. As you can imagine there is a bit of a technique to achieving an even charred result, unfortunately my blow lamp is a very small kitchen blow lamp and getting a nice even result in not very easy for me on some mouldings. I find it a lot easier of distressed, or narrowly ribbed pine and I'm mostly aiming not to heavily burn wood that I am just intending to finish with a stained finish, to just brown some of the grain a little, because this saves time not having to brush away any wood which has turned to charcoal.

I have some old weathered boards which were originally the back door to a passage way from the front street under my flat and in to my back yard, these were never painted or protected in any way from the weather. As a result, the boards have turned grey and heavilyy ridged. In time, I will be cutting these down to a usable width and I will need to burn and wire brush the sawn down edges. I suspect that these boards will be a lot easier to stain as a result of being heavily weathered and grained.