Wait time after blopping? And primer recommendations?

[Mick_VT]

Don’t wear an orange t-shirt when you go to Home Depot. I was there to get some painting supplies and spent an hour answering questions for people

been there, done that, and can confirm it is true

[mjt]

Don’t wear an orange t-shirt when you go to Home Depot. I was there to get some painting supplies and spent an hour answering questions for people

been there, done that, and can confirm it is true

I'm filling in for Tammie on Saturday afternoon.

[mjt]

I'll perhaps start a new thread for this, but would the same advice apply for applying blop to wood that will be stained rather than painted? I need to restore our front door, sidelights, and transom. It appears that there hasn't been any finish on the exposed bit for years... This old post on my blog shows the door as it appeared 5 years ago. It doesn't look any different today.

[phil]

[*] You were given one mouth and two ears for a reason. Corollary: I don’t learn anything new by listening to myself talk…[/list]

I heard it this way.. "if your lips are flappin' you aint learnin' " lol

it made me think about some I know who can't be wrong and have a huge ego that prevents them from asking questions and seeking advice.. the end result is that they just don't learn as much.

Here HD hires kids just out of high school. When they first started up here in Canada they hired a lot of tradesmen but that went out the window. they used to advertise a tradesman in every isl.. Lowes followed suit with reducing knowledgeable staff.
I was trying to buy all my roofing materials a week ago and just couldn't get good advice.. I picked up some boxes of special nails for holding my membrane on and went looking for larger quantities as I needed lots and they were just little boxes. so I set them down for a moment to go look in hardware. they had the cap nails in two diffferent places , hardware and with the roofing.. . I had just been asking the sales guy at the construction counter for larger quantities as Ive sen them sold in big buckets. I went back in 5 minutes and he had hid them. then he said they aren't for that, they are for insulation. I had to point to where it said on the box that they were "for installing the roofing membrane".. I felt like he was actually trying to mess me up. finally I asked him where my nails went and he led me down another isle where he had stashed them all... in a place with nothing to do with hardware or nails or roofing.
I felt like complaining about the guy but decided Its not my job
I went to a roofing supply place and he had lots of knowledge about his products and the prices were a lot better.

Ive had better advice by asking random people that look like they are contractors and I've helped lots too.. one guy on the same trip was trying to do the roof on a shed and he had no clue. he figured he had to glue them all down with roof cement so I tried to help a little I later realized the best advice I could have given the guy was to go home and watch some Utube videos on roofing.

I've had similar issues with Ben Moore. I like the products but the last time I called the lady on the phone was relaying questions to someone else and it was frustrating as I wasn't asking anything difficult. I decided that if I shop at the store and if I have questions I'm just going to blatantly ask that they have the owner of the store call me when he is in. I think the owner is the only one who knows much but I never see him in the store.

I think whats happening is that there is a huge skilled labor shortage and anyone who knows anything has a better job than in retail.. If you are lucky you can find an older semi retired guy who knows stuff but I don't even see so many like that, mostly high school age kids.

[Manalto]

...would the same advice apply for applying blop to wood that will be stained rather than painted?

I'm guessing here, but wanted to bring your question to the front of the line so someone knowledgeable can confirm, refute or otherwise advise.

Blop contains linseed oil which will seal the pores of the wood, making it resistant to stain. I would stain before applying blop. Your finish coat will then need to be oil-based.

[heartwood]

this is my experience....
blop will fill the 'pores' but only after numerous coats...that's why I suggest ONE liberal (like me) application and then wipe off the excess...the turp is the vehicle that allows the linseed to penetrate more than if you use it on its own...I DO blop prior to staining...I use oil based gel stain...I even spoke with a chemist at General Finishes and he suggested it was a good process...
https://generalfinishes.com/wood-finish ... gel-stains

after the stain sets up (could be 3-4 days) I apply multiple coats of a satin gel sealer..
https://generalfinishes.com/wood-finish ... el-topcoat

that's my answer and it's sticking to me!
....jade

[Manalto]

You make learning fun.

[phil]

some like stains and it is of course your choice , just keep in mind they are very difficult to remove and if you put them on a door or any other antique you have destroyed the originality, unless it is something like a solid wood piece where you can sand through it to fresh wood. Ive seen a lot of antiques destroyed this way and it seems to be a fashion trend for people who just don't know or don't care about antiques to pick up old furniture and treat them with stain. there are nicer ways to darken the finish but stains are nice to use on a fence or the back porch where you just want the sun blockers. for furniture and doors. I wouldn't because they will hide the wood grain and you will not get them off if you ever want to restore the original woodwork.

instead I'd look at lacquer toners and I'd do clear lacquer or shellac first then use the colors, that way you have a barrier if you want to restore the item later. th difference is that if you start wiping stians right into the woodgrain it willabsorb forever. If you put your pigments into a clear base , that could be shellac or lacquer then the topcoat holds these pigments, it isn't being soaked right into the grain of the wood. If I use toners I do some coats of clear and then do the coats of toner in very thin coats with more clear between and gradually work toward the darkness I desire. since the layers are transparent the grain is somewhat hidden but it is still there at least. Stains that soak into the wood tend to produce a monotone look, like brown paint. there are different types of stians some are more transparent and some more opaque. If you do some coats with a garnet shellac you may find it works in a similar way as you can build the finish and isnstead of putting the pigment on in one shot you are combining a semi transparent colorant into the finish itself.

if the work faces the exterior and you use a poly stain the poly may want to crack and peel from sun exposure. clear finishes and poly don't fare well in the sun and rain.

another method might be to do your clear oil first, do about 3 coats of it , then put about 5% of the stain into your oil and continue doing coats.

what this does is the clear fills the little cracks , scratches and bruises patterns from sanding or planing etc.. and differences in grain patterns , some absorbs differently depending on how the grain runs.
If you just went with the toned stuff it would enhance the flaws. the clear lets these "defects" be filled and then subsequent coats of oil with some pigment will darken it in a more controlled manor. That might make wood that you have sanded and restored look like it is older and darkened. by doing it this way you have a lot of control as you can darken the piece with many thin coats.

You might have to try samples this way to really see the difference.. but this is the method I prefer if I find my trim is not quite as dark as I would like. I think it looks a lot more natural than a "paint stain"


sometimes brown stains can look nice on woodwork but mostly what I have seen is a streaky mess or where the colors of the stain mask the nice grain patterns. at least if you paint it you have a chance to get the stuff off.

the problem with stains is that they stain the wood, If you ever scratch it up and wish it wasn't there it isn't easy to get them off. If you stain an antique and then try to restore it again you'll find that you have a really tough time getting it off and this is a good way to quickly ruin antiques.

You might like them particularly after they are first applied. If you do then go for it but please consider that this is not easy to reverse the application. do not put this stuff on antiques that have any heritage value. I see some old radios that people who are misinformed try to use and it ruins them completely. they are usually veneer and if it has veneer you just can't really do anything. If you were to try to get the same effect using lacquer or shellac , no problem, grab a rag wet with alcohol or lacquer thinner or paint stripper and you can wash that finish right off to the base wood and start the process over.

old antiques were often made from choice woods such as black walnut. cheaper reproductions ( which still may be antiques) are often made from lighter woods like white walnut or even pine. With radios and things like that they did use lacquer toners to mimic the look of the walnut. Often what happens is that people don't understand the difference and they strip them and then go at them with stain which quickly soaks in and hides the grain and once that as been done they are no longer desirable to collectors since they can no longer be refinished properly. most of the real true antiques from europe already are dark woods as they had the real stuff to make furniture with. these woods should not be stained.

when you look at any wood in it's raw state you know it will look a lot different with any finish on it. I like to just use dainish oil or turps and linseed oil. then you can just wipe that on and have a look at what you have. don't try to immagine what that will look like. Often you will find that just applying the oil made it as dark as you wanted. you will also see that initial big change as the oil pops the grain. If I later wanted to finish the item with a topcoat that would form a hard shell I'd want ot see this and while it is just oil I can work on the darkness or sand more if there are blemishes. If you simply go straight to a hard shell topcoat you can't really do anything to the wood itself as it is already under the shell and you cant' touch it anymore. I look at this first coat of oil as a "preview" sometimes thing show like maybe where you used a power sander and it chattered and left a pattern.. If you don't like it, then you can just break out the sandpaper and correct it then you can put more oil over the whole piece and see if you've gotten rid of the issue.

some like to stain doors and trim. If you like it its your house go for it but please realize it might not be a very original finish and there may be other more reversible ways to achieve your goal of darkening your woodwork. If your pigment is combined into a shellac or lacquer you can just wash it off with lacquer thinners if you don't like it or if you wish to refinish the wood again.

some woods take on stains more evenly , sometimes it looks good. different types of wood will soak up the stain differently. sometimes a sealer is used because some woods ( like fir or maple) will not absorb the stain evenly. some woods have an open grain and some are closed and this refers to the pores in the wood. you can look up properties of different species to get some info on that.

in a nutshell try samples on the same kind of wood you have. how the stains absorb is important. there are certain combinations of stain and wood where you can just wipe it on and stand back and think wow that looks great, but there are other combinations where you try to wipe it on or brush it on and it looks like it is big smeared on mess. a lot has to do with how the wood absorbs the pigments. in some cases it is very difficult to achieve results that don't look like a streaky mess but there are some combinations that will look great. the intricacy of the object may come to play as it is easier to achieve a more even pigment thickness if it is easy to wipe on the surface but the shape may prevent that from being easy to achieve. on a long sanded board sitting on sawhorses may not present a problem , try to get into the corners of a panel door , that might present an issue because it becomes much more difficult to wipe the finish on with a really even thickness.. This is where wipe on poly can easily look like wipe on (sh_t)

In some cases dyes are preferable as they are sprayed not wiped and may give more consistent coverage. these can be mixed with water or alcohol or other solvents and sprayed on. some of these stains can be brushed on or wiped on and can leave behind obvious and very ugly patterns because they didn't soak in evenly. I would at least do tests to make sure its what you want. places that refinish new cabinets and stuff you'd likely see in IKEA are often done this way , in a special spray area for that, in a commercial environment. You'll see things like beds or kitchen cabinets or old looking picture frames made in china. They sport a lovely looking dark finish but it is just white crap wood underneath. Use them a while and scratch them up and they look like garbage IKEA grade furniture and our landfills are full of crap like that. Its made to sell not to last.

Often wood will display it's ribbon and luster if finished properly but stains kill that effect by putting pigments on top of the wood thus hiding the beauty of the wood itself. If it's the back fence who cares but if it is something you value , do tests and give it some thought. If it's really what you want that then go for it.

Most of my trim and doors are fir. I love nice woodwork and I would cringe to the thought of using a poly stain on it. In my case it isn nothing really fancy. some others here have beautiful woodwork with a lot more ornamentation. I mostly just use the clear and it darkens it naturally. If I want it a bit darker then I combine a teeny bit of the stain but I always start with the clear.
Remember the old rule about applying danish or linseed oil , once a day for a week once a month for a year, then once a year.

If you just use the oil and no other top coat, you have forever to continue darkening it with more coats! no need to rush this.

If you put poly or shellac or lacquer over it it will still darken naturally because the wood darkens with time as it sees the UV but if there is no other coating you can accept the oil finish and if you keep going back to give it another wipe now and again it'll darken more and the oil presents the best finish because it is not sitting on top of the wood like the clear coatings that form a shell would. You can either do below the wood finishes or above the wood finishes or you can do a combination of both. that might be using oil which soaks in, and then a finish that forms a shell. myself I would use poly on a floor because I wish to protect it from wear but with trim I only use the oil. It really doesn't need poly and it looks better without the clear coating on top. If I put a clear on that I'd choose shellac. The oil can still be finished to a shine if you work at it this is the nicest finish as the finish won't block your visibility of the wood and it's ribbon and depth.

where you'll see this real beauty is when you go into a really old building and see the handrails that have been touched a million times, or on grandpa's old brine smoking pipes. or the wood turners they will work at objects for a long time and produce the most spectacular looking below the wood type finishes on bowls and things. Gun stocks and old hammer handles often have this old look that is just beautiful as well as durable. Its perhaps too labor intensive for some things but when you do see and touch it it is indeed special. you can mimic this effect by using fine sandpaper and oil finishes and if you keep scrubbing the oil in with fine sandpaper it produces beautiful effects.

another beautiful finish is french polish. Its done by rubbing in shellac with a pad dampened with alcohol and to do a flat surface isnt' that hard but when you get into trying to put that sort of a finish onto a complex form you begin to realize why french polishing is a trade in itself, or at least was. You wont see much that is french polished but maybe some expensive antiques and pianos and such. the reason it looks nice is because they are achieving a very flat and perfect shiny surface with no voids but they are not adding a thick coating to block the view of the wood. this allows the viewer to see the depth of the wood and the ribbon and detail in some of the nicer woods can be really spectacular.

with my floors I can see where I have put area rugs , where the rugs are not then wood darkens to a pleasing look, it takes a few years. sometimes I move the area rugs to prevent shadows but any shadows will eventually correct themselves once the rugs are moved. Its easy to forget that your newly refinished wood will actually darken quite a bit over the first few years. If you put finishes with UV blockers than it will prevent or slow the natural darkening. some of the water based finishes are bad for that and you might pay attention to the products you choose and weather they contain them or not. stain is often used on porches and fences because the brown pigment itself is is a UV blocker ( so is paint) so it helps protect the fence from the sun but you might not want to prevent your interior woodwork from doing some darkening all on it's own. In that case the UV probably isn't going to cause your wood to open up and degrade the same as exterior wood.

the nice thing about most stains is that they don't peel like paint so on the outside facing parts of your window maybe that would be what you want as you basically have a choice between stains and paint, but the kind of stains you;d put on the outside of your house would likely be ones that completely hide the wood like paint does.

as we move forward the newer homes are full of MDF and cabinetry that is real junk. One thing our old houses have to show for themselves is the natural woodwork so I think it is more important now than ever to let it show and to try to preserve it so it can be seen. Nowadays they can make everything look like it is an antique but it is basically usually fake wood. the factories are real experts at making junk wood look nice for sale-time.
when you see a true antique table with a beautiful true finish sitting beside some IKEA made in china table,, the IKEA one looks quite nice when new because the manufacturers have learned how to make things look nice for sale ,, but its still junk. after ten years you could hardly give it away. The antique might have a few bumps and blemishes but that's patina. I'd have a hard time thinking of the scratches through the finish into the white wood below "patina"

the pottery barn type stuff.. some of it is done so well you really have to look to realize it isn't an antique... they are really good at this now. when I see it I admire the finish they achieved but I still don't want to own it.

Id just do some experiments and if you use that stain I just wanted to give you a bit more info. I would encourage you to try it but do samples and think what way you want to go. it might just be a piece of trim but if you wish to make all the wood in your house look the same youll have ot be prepared to do the same with each piece so for that reason I'd give the process some thought.

one reason I like to start with clear danish oil is that it is very easy to do. If my environment is dusty that's not a problem. If I do some and go back to it a year later it's fine so for me this simple process is the best. I usually put the first coat on and it soaks in subsequent coats I wipe down. once I have about 3 coats I start using about 400 grit wet or dry sandpaper to put it on with and that smootens it out as I go and knocks some of the fine bits of wood fibers that stick up and buries them into the voids. continuing to do this will build a very smooth piece with out looking or feeling like plastic. after I have done some I can easily add pigments if I thimk one bit is too light. In my house I have had to use reclaimed trim and things from several sources but as long as it is fir it seems to tie in. even if the fir is new growth. I find the odd piece is a bit too light and then I just darken those ones.

my finishing process differs from some. I have decided its ok to sand right in through that darkened skin of old wood. this gives me more freedom to add new bits or to do things like run an old baseboard through a planer. It also requires that I sand each piece with a belt sander and about 60 grit before finishing. If you do it the other way, and try not to ever sand much then the problem I find is the little white paint flecks from wood I have stripped create a time consuming job to pick the tiny flecks out or to hide them with pens and touch up techniques. Id rather sand and then darken it later, I find this easier. the other place you may have an issue if you try to keep the original skin of darkened wood intackt is if you scrape paint. It is very difficult to scrape the paint off something and not leave some merks that go through the darkened skin. I just remove the skin by sanding all sides. If you didnt; wanto remove the trim that might be harder. I always remove it if I can which is almost always but some here have scraped paint in a very careful manor without removing it. Its easy to remove so I never do that unless it is something hard to remove like a threshold or window sill. casings and trim pry off easily.

many here use linseed oil and turpentine, I use danish oil and turpentine btu its basically the same thing. You might try tung oil too. its a bit more costly.