Need some finishing advice:

Background: 18th Century wall paneling of oak (rails) and unknown
center panels with carvings. Installed, millwork and paneling matched
to continue in room and then all painted with oil primer & 2 coats of
alkyd topcoat.
Then STRIPPED, and a wood conditioner sealer applied.

I have been hired to match the new wood which is poplar and maple for
the panels to look like the old wood. What would be the best way to
remove the sealer
and bring back the new wood to life for staining? I think the paint
removal process with scrappers and then the sealer on top of that is
not allowing the grain in the maple or poplar to come through the
stains.

Today I will be trying Lacquer thinner to remove the sealant.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

On 30 Jun 2005 06:01:22 -0700, "
wrote:

Need some finishing advice:

Background: 18th Century wall paneling of oak (rails) and unknown
center panels with carvings. Installed, millwork and paneling matched
to continue in room and then all painted with oil primer & 2 coats of
alkyd topcoat.
Then STRIPPED, and a wood conditioner sealer applied.

I have been hired to match the new wood which is poplar and maple for
the panels to look like the old wood. What would be the best way to
remove the sealer
and bring back the new wood to life for staining? I think the paint
removal process with scrappers and then the sealer on top of that is
not allowing the grain in the maple or poplar to come through the
stains.

Today I will be trying Lacquer thinner to remove the sealant.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated!

In my amateur opinion there is no process by which you will be able to
make either maple or poplar look like oak under a stain. Poplar in
particular does not generally stain well and is considered more of a
"paint grade" wood. Maple, while frequently having more interest in
terms of grain than poplar isn't remotely similar to oak in
appearance. You *might* be able to get these woods to harmonize with
paint, but I think you are doomed to failure with stain.

--
LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

Proud participant of rec.woodworking since February, 1997

Thanks. I'm not trying to get the wood to look like another type.
Just trying to figure a way to make the grain show through more.
All that paint/scrapping and sealer have made it almost impossible.

Thanks again.

" wrote:

Thanks. I'm not trying to get the wood to look like another type.
Just trying to figure a way to make the grain show through more.
All that paint/scrapping and sealer have made it almost impossible.

Thanks again.

Poplar and (I'm assuming) soft maple have virtually no visible grain to
start with...there's essentially nothing there to "bring out"...

In article .com, " wrote:
Need some finishing advice:

Background: 18th Century wall paneling of oak (rails) and unknown
center panels with carvings. Installed, millwork and paneling matched
to continue in room and then all painted with oil primer & 2 coats of
alkyd topcoat.
Then STRIPPED, and a wood conditioner sealer applied.

I have been hired to match the new wood which is poplar and maple for
the panels to look like the old wood.

Impossible. No matter what you do, you cannot make maple or poplar look like
oak.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

Thanks for the input. Should prove an interesting challenge.

" wrote:

Thanks for the input. Should prove an interesting challenge.

What, specifically is the wished for appearance?

I'd suspect it will require one of the following choices to make old vs
new "match"...

1. Paint w/ surface prep to fill grain on oak.

2. Solid stain w/ surface prep as above.

3. Some faux finish technique to camaflouge it all similarly...

A transparent stain to attempt the matching w/o hiding the oak grain
isn't going to be possible, in all likelihood.

The finish we're looking for is to match the 18th century paneling as
it is.
After the stripping....so looks like I'll be matching the color and
then
faux graining the rest. All the old stuff will remain as is.......

M

wrote in message
oups.com...
The finish we're looking for is to match the 18th century paneling as
it is.
After the stripping....so looks like I'll be matching the color and
then
faux graining the rest. All the old stuff will remain as is.......

M


This is the real solution, and is exactly how they would have done it
originally

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:21:28 +0100, LRod wrote:

In my amateur opinion there is no process by which you will be able to
make either maple or poplar look like oak under a stain.

Yes, but you're not the target audience. How much "like" oak does this
new panelling have to look ?

How dark is the 18th century panelling? I don't know of any 18th
century oak panelling locally that isn't painted. I happened to be
looking at some 16th century fully-panelled rooms earlier this week (the
Red Lodge in Bristol) and they're so dark that they'd be pretty easy to
match. The superb ray-flake figure (riven boards) on 2' wide clear
boards might be a bit trickier!

I think you need to have a serious discussion with whoever specced
poplar (English ash is much easier to fake as oak) and then wanted
fake-oak finish. How close do they need it, and can they afford the
time and labour to do that whole "painting with a feather" technique for
accurately faking oak.

--
Cats have nine lives, which is why they rarely post to Usenet.

Want a progress report?

I removed all the sealer and leftover from the paint removal with
laquer. I'll sand all the new wood back to finish quality, and just
clean
the sealer off the "old" wood.

I'm using a dye to match the colors of the old wood, then I'll use
homeade oil
stains to give it all a uniform color. Follow that with as light a
faux grain as
possible with glaze to make the poplar look more like the old oak.
I expect high entertainment out of this!

Thanks y'all for the input.

" wrote:

Want a progress report?

I removed all the sealer and leftover from the paint removal with
laquer. I'll sand all the new wood back to finish quality, and just
clean
the sealer off the "old" wood.

I'm using a dye to match the colors of the old wood, then I'll use
homeade oil
stains to give it all a uniform color. Follow that with as light a
faux grain as
possible with glaze to make the poplar look more like the old oak.
I expect high entertainment out of this!

Thanks y'all for the input.

I strongly suggest you do some practice pieces first...

Always...I'm a professional decorative painter, just have never run
into this situation before. I do not want to lose any of the original
character of the wood.

By the way, the first steps worked beautifully.

Mitch