# mostly pine



## tombo (27 Feb 2006)

One sunday last summer SWMBO said that the kids need some organisation for their many toys something like a couple of toyboxes. The wood for that wont be very expensive i said.... lets go and have a look at B&Q :roll: ....well they are open on a Sunday. 

nearly a hundred quid and three weekends later I had managed to make three lids and two of these ( the first design for the lid was abandoned ,more later) 







The construction is very simple, i used my new door making router cutter set for the rails and styles and glued up flat panels for the field. Its only when i started a task like this i realised what a mistake it was to use B&Q pine. The panels were very narrow so the glue-ups were tedious, and the non straightness of the wood in general makes it difficult to work with. Plus my mad design meant there was loads of waste. 

At the end though i had made two large toy boxes, and i was quite pleased. Then i discovered what an unforgiving material pine is to apply a finish to. I used a stain/varnish but try as i might i could not help the blotchy appearance. I was so disappointed with the results that i only had the heart to finish one of the boxes. I left the second one natural. Then i took them indoors and the wood shrank real badly :evil: :evil: 






and 






finally just yesterday one of my little cherubs jumped from his bunk bed straight through the top of the second toybox :? 






while the toybox was being smashed I was in the middle of another project from pine a bookcase for my mum this time i got the wood from travis perkins... what a difference flat straight and smooth. 






here are the shelf supports 






and fitting the legs and skirt 






though i have just stained it a dark oak colour (no pictures yet) looks like i'm going to have problems with blotchiness again arrrrrg! 

That it no more pine!! its just not worth the effort to be so disappointed with the finishing problems... 

Simultaneous to this a friend visited me and was admiring the toybox lid i was about to scrap, saying it would make a nice coffee table so i knocked this together using pocket screws 






He is going to have to varnish it himself i've had it, but then he did get a free table.


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## Bean (27 Feb 2006)

Busy Busy But Pine is a pain to finish and i do not know of a solution. I also do not buy fron B&Q. If I need soft wood I go to a joiners in the next village very stable redwood which is nice to use.

Bean


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## PowerTool (27 Feb 2006)

> Simultaneous to this a friend visited me and was admiring the toybox lid i was about to scrap, saying it would make a nice coffee table so i knocked this together using pocket screws



And it looks very nice as well ! (particularly for something just "knocked together" :lol: )

Andrew


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## gwaithcoed (27 Feb 2006)

Tombo,There is nothing wrong with the design nor the workmanship, but I know what you mean about the quality of the timber.

Alan.


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## Paul Chapman (28 Feb 2006)

Very nice photos and very nice work, Tombo. But what a pity about that pine  

B&Q really seem to be the top shop for rubbish wood, don't they. I've found their stuff very good for the fire when I run short of logs :wink: 

Paul


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## CYC (28 Feb 2006)

They are all well design and executed projects. I like the style.
Of course as said already it's really difficult to get a nice finish on pine  

Good job and thanks for showing the pictures. Nice use of the pocket holes on bookcase :wink:


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## dedee (28 Feb 2006)

Tombo, nice work. I'm surprised you did not do safety test on the toy box lid :lol: 
There a post somewhere about the merits of applying the finish before assembly which would have helped with your shrinkage problems. I do hope that I can remember to do this in a week or twos time.

Andy


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## Colin C (28 Feb 2006)

Hi all, 
A tip for getting a good finish on pine is to try a spirit stain and not the all in ones. It is much easier to get an even finish with.
I made cue cases from pine and got a good finish on them.
I will try to post a pic, i still have one round


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## Anonymous (1 Mar 2006)

That is such a shame Tombo, I like the boxes.


I have recently started finishing before glue-up, mainly due to Philly of course  and I think this would solve problems of the type you have experienced - apart formt eh blotchiness that pine gives


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## Argee (1 Mar 2006)

As has been said, pine can be a real pain to get a decent finish on. 

My method is to use rag-applied spirit stain (Liberon, Chestnut, several others), followed by a clear finish. I've noticed that the application goes much better when the pine is sanded (to 400), then thoroughly cleaned and tacked off. I *always *treat panels before assembly. 

On this unit, I used "Mellow Pine" followed by poly and it's darkened quite gently over six or seven years.






Ray.


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## cherilton (1 Mar 2006)

Nice to see some pine . Its always best to at least stain the edges of the door panels before assembly due to shrinkage but my stuff doesn't always shrink ( in the winter it tends too mostly). And as you have found the panels are not very strong if you stand on them , i had a chap bring a wardrobe door back to me a while back , in pieces, i was a little worried for a while until he told me his teenage son had finished with his girlfriend and punched the door knocking the panel straight through. 
With good sanding and a water based stain then followed by the top finish you shouldn't have problems with blotchiness.


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## gwaithcoed (1 Mar 2006)

Hello Argee,

I like yourself sand with 400 grit before applying the stain (colron mostly). Even after allowing the correct drying time for the stain to dry I find that when I apply the clear varnish it takes forever to dry. My wife gets fed up with me bringing thing into the house to dry. 

What can I be doing wrong??

Any tips would be appreciated (by my wife :x :x )

Cheers Alan.


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## DaveL (1 Mar 2006)

Hi Alan,


gwaithcoed":3u3nbh6u said:


> Even after allowing the correct drying time for the stain to dry I find that when I apply the clear varnish it takes forever to dry. My wife gets fed up with me bringing thing into the house to dry.
> 
> What can I be doing wrong??
> 
> Any tips would be appreciated (by my wife :x :x )



I think you need to apply for better insulation and a bigger heater for the workshop. :shock:
Might need to duck while doing so. :wink:


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## Argee (1 Mar 2006)

gwaithcoed":3u9i68pj said:


> Even after allowing the correct drying time for the stain to dry I find that when I apply the clear varnish it takes forever to dry.


Alan,

Do you mean the drying time as quoted on the can? I've had problems in the distant past when I took notice of that! I reckon to leave a couple of days between stain and finish, otherwise I've found that the finish _can_ be affected. 

I forget what Colron recommend as a drying time, but if it feels *at all* damp or slimy, then leave it alone until you can run the *back* of your hand lightly over it without effect (use the back of your hand because the fine hairs will catch, whereas your fingertips won't necessarily notice - also you won't leave prints!). HTH 

Ray.


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## Paul Chapman (1 Mar 2006)

I've mainly used water-based colours when I've needed to stain wood (Furniglas in the old days, till they stopped making it, now Liberon). Once when I couldn't get the colour I wanted, I used a spirit or oil-based stain (can't remember what it was) which reacted quite dramatically with the clear polyurethane varnish, which started to remove the stain and I had terrible problems with it drying. :? :? Ended up wishing I'd never started    

Went back to water-based stains after that. One advantage of them is that you can lighten them with a damp cloth after application and even out any application problems with the same technique :wink: 

It would be helpful if someone in the know could explain all the basic base substances used in colours/stains/dyes (what are the differences :? ) and similarly with finishing products oil/spirit/polyurethane/water or whatever, and what reacts badly/well with what.

It's all very confusing for us non-chemist types :? :? 

Paul


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## matt (1 Mar 2006)

I've never had a problem staining Pine using a rag and a spirit based stain. I usually tend to only stain it enough to take away some of the natural Yellow colour and make it look slight aged. This means that my rag is often very dry and I rub quite hard to deposit the stain on the wood in an even and layered fashion. Even managed to stain floorboards using exactly this method with no blotchiness.


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## Colin C (1 Mar 2006)

Paul Chapman":1uhxddls said:


> I've mainly used water-based colours when I've needed to stain wood (Furniglas in the old days, till they stopped making it, now Liberon). Once when I couldn't get the colour I wanted, I used a spirit or oil-based stain (can't remember what it was) which reacted quite dramatically with the clear polyurethane varnish, which started to remove the stain and I had terrible problems with it drying. :? :? Ended up wishing I'd never started
> 
> Went back to water-based stains after that. One advantage of them is that you can lighten them with a damp cloth after application and even out any application problems with the same technique :wink:
> 
> ...


Hi Paul,
The stain you used that went wrong was oil, oil also can bleed through a finnish :shock: . I have had it, even after 4 or 5 coats.
You cant use oil stains with polyurethane as they have similar base but oil is very forgiving when being used. No stripes
Water can be used with all finnishs but can some times get stripes if not carefull.
Spirit stain can be use with all finnishs to but will get a little to a lot lighter when the finnish is applyed, also they can be put in spirit finnishs to darken or change a colour so can water stains but in a water base finnish.
Hope it help


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## gwaithcoed (1 Mar 2006)

Argee wrote


> Do you mean the drying time as quoted on the can?



Yes Colron recomend "allow to dry for at least 6 hours or preferably overnight."

I have stained something this afternoon which I was going to varnish after lunch tomorrow. I will now leave it untill Friday to see if that helps.

It's got to be some reaction with the stain as when I use it on any unstained pine it dries within the recomended time i.e.touch dry in 2 - 4 hours.

Thank you Alan.


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## Paul Chapman (1 Mar 2006)

Thanks, Colin, that's really helpful  

Paul


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