cshenk wrote:
"Goog" wrote
....

1. The brand of the stain is Minwax (yellow can) from Home Depot.
2. It's oil base.

I've not used the brand but my husband has. He says it will be tacky
for about a week then solidly dry. Just let it be for now is what he says.
Anything else you do now, will muck it up.

Again, "Minwax" is a brand; they have a large number of products and
many (most????) of those are in various variations of yellow cans so
_still_ if you want some answers that are pertinent to the actual case
you need to provide sufficient information...

Chances are (but as noted not guaranteed) the product is the "Wood
Finish" stain; at least the gel formulation is also in yellow, others
might be as well, I don't recall otomh...

3. I lightly sanded the old desk before applied the new stain.

This may be related to it. Don and I normally take it down totally to
bare wood unless we want a slightly 'distressed look' to an old solid
piece (in shich case a few minor bits of the old stain at the hard to
reach spots works well).

That undoubtedly is very highly related -- if there's finish left
there's no place for the solvent to be absorbed into the wood pores so
the entire process has to be from the surface. Depending on what the
original finish was (varnish, poly, shellac, lacquer, ...) the solvent
in the stain may well have dissolved/softened it and mixed leaving what
is anybody's guess as to what the characteristics of that mixture are.

In general, such things lead to a gummy mixture that doesn't have very
good drying properties so I'm not at all surprised in that case it
hasn't dried quickly.

4. I used a rag to apply the stain but didn't wipe it out real real
dry.
....

And that's a problem both from the drying and from a potential problem
w/ the topcoat down the road. Oil stains are designed for the pigments
to be absorbed into the pores in the wood, not to be left deposited on
the surface like a paint or solid-stain. If there's a significant layer
of pigment left on the surface likely one will have trouble w/ a topcoat
in several ways--first, it will probably redissolve some of the
pigments and carry them into the finish which tends to "muddy" the
appearance and secondly since the product isn't designed as a paint
layer the pigment doesn't contain binders to make it "stick". As such,
chances are high that the topcoat surface will not adhere for long term.

I saw Home Depot sells some type of polyurethane (water based) and it
said "quick dry".

Relatively. Do not add this now, wait for the stain to hard seal.

1. Should I go ahead and apply the clear coat on (even the wood is
still a little wet).
2. Or should I wait until it dries out completely completely before
put the clear coat on?

Wait til it dries totally.

And whatever you do, make sure it is listed as being compatible w/ the
specific product you did use. Not all water-based finishes are
recommended over oil and particularly w/ the (apparent) mixing you
already have don't make it even more of a polyglot...

Here's a link to the Minwax site for some pointers...

http://www.minwax.com/how_to/basics_of_wood_finishing/

I personally like the original Minwax products that includes the Wood
Finish stain and the Antique Oil Finish; I'm not as fond of their poly's
and definitely do not like the combination products.

What to use depends also on what kind of a surface you're after and what
the actual wood is and the existing finish.

I'd suggest going to the Minwax site and reading the FAQ and usage
guides, etc., for the specific product as a first next step.

Not being able to see it to judge, very specific advice is hard, but
from the description if presented w/ the piece I'd venture my next step
would be to take a rag and wet it with the stain and work on rubbing it
out to remove the excess layer from the top and then see how that acts.
It will be very hard to rub initially, but if you can salvage it, at
one point all of a sudden it will work much more easily. If that
doesn't work well after a go, I'd likely go to a thinned version using
some thinner as lubricant. Either way, what you need to do is to get it
down to the layer of what was absorbed.

At that point you'll have to judge whether the look is ok or not--if
it's blotchy because of existing finish it's likely the only real
solution will be to start over and sand it down to bare wood or at least
to remove the existing finish uniformly.

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