On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:09:41 -0700, infiniteMPG wrote:

We just finished up putting tongue & groove pine boards in the ceiling
of our porch. The porch area is about 25-feet wide so we trimmed down
14-foot and 12-foot boards so there is a single alternating joint in
each row. Looks good and we needed to stain it so we sampled more
stains then we can shake a stick at and decided on Minwax's Ipswitch
Pine. Just now finished up all the staining (and am barely able to type
from the overhead work) and it looks great with one exception. Some of
the board parts have a high shine to them and other parts are very dull
and flat. Was just differences in parts of the wood as you can see the
patterns in the shiny areas. Biggest problem is the bare pine was light
and when you see the light reflection on the shiny spots it looks like
we missed spots but we didn't.

What we were wondering is if someone could recommend maybe a satin clear
protector or something we can spray or brush over top of the stain, not
only to protect the wood, but also to unify the finish appearance.
Would prefer a satin or dull finish over shine, but would like something
easy to apply like in spray cans. We have some Thompson's Water Sealer
in spray cans but don't want to "test" on the actual ceiling unless
we're sure we're going to do the whole thing.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

When I was at Menards to inquire about finishing pine treads, I was told
there is a product for prepping the wood so the stain would take evenly.
Can't recall the product name but I think it was also by Minwax.

I suspect the difference you are seeing is due to porosity of wood and
presence of sap/oil in the wood. If a penetrating stain is used, it
seems reasonable to expect that the stain would be absorbed differently
depending on structure of wood. A topical stain would probably cover
more evenly.



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Franz Fripplfrappl