I've got about 500 ft of poplar window and door that I want to stain to come close to "minwax early american". There is very little green wood but the poplar still blotches. Is is possible to mix a conditioner with stain and oil to make a one step finish? Would prefer not to go over these things 2 or 3 times (but I might have to). How is analine dye on poplar?

Any ideas?

Try glue-size. Let it dry first, sand it, then use an alcohol-based analine
dye. (A water-based will dissolve the sizing.)

Granted, it will necessitate going over the wood again, but it usually
eliminates any blotching. And the alcohol-based dye takes surprisingly well
on the sizing.




"RWK" wrote in message
newss77e.12460$Xm3.927@trndny01...
I've got about 500 ft of poplar window and door that I want to stain to come
close to "minwax early american". There is very little green wood but the
poplar still blotches. Is is possible to mix a conditioner with stain and
oil to make a one step finish? Would prefer not to go over these things 2
or 3 times (but I might have to). How is analine dye on poplar?

Any ideas?

No you can't mix it together. It would defeat the purpose. The
pre-stain esentially soaks into the wood to keep the stain from being
able to soak in so easily, therefore laying out more consistently. So
the pre-stain needs to be laid down first.

I use the Minwax pre-stain conditioner quite a bit (on Pine mostly). It
is esentially colorless so you can be pretty fast (ie messy). I slosh
it on like water, wipe it off immediately and follow it with oil stain
in just a few minutes. I think you could move along pretty quick if
there isn't too much detail to worry about.

use a gel stain, they don't blotch nearly as bad

RWK wrote:

I've got about 500 ft of poplar window and door that I want to stain to
come close to "minwax early american". There is very little green wood
but the poplar still blotches. Is is possible to mix a conditioner with
stain and oil to make a one step finish? Would prefer not to go over
these things 2 or 3 times (but I might have to). How is analine dye on
poplar?

Any ideas?

--
if corn oil is made from corn, and olive oil is made from olives, where dose
baby oil come from?

RWK wrote:

I've got about 500 ft of poplar window and door that I want to stain to
come close to "minwax early american". There is very little green wood
but the poplar still blotches. Is is possible to mix a conditioner with
stain and oil to make a one step finish? Would prefer not to go over
these things 2 or 3 times (but I might have to). How is analine dye on
poplar?

Any ideas?

I use the minwhacks conditioner on poplar (as well as all Jummywoods)
and find it works well to get rid of the blotches. Goop it on with a
brush or your favorite applicator, let it dry 20 minutes, and apply
whatever stain you like. I tend to use darker stains to cover the
poplar colors but if you have selected your boards carefully, lighter
stains should work just fine. You might experiment with adding a dye to
the conditioner (on some scrap of course) and let us know how it turns out.
mahalo,
jo4hn