Console Staining and Varnishing Complete

Now that the console was ready, I had to decide what type of stain to use.  Most paint store stains are pigment based.  Finely ground clay of various colors is suspended in an extremely thin varnish.  When applied, the pigment settles primarily in the pores, but not so much in the denser wood.  I don't especially care for that look.  Analine wood dye solves that problem.  It colors the pores and dense wood more evenly.  I decided to use a combination of two dyes from W.D. Lockwood in New York.  Both are a medium brown, but one (Seal Brown) is a bit more red and the other (Flemish Brown Oak) is more gray.  The wood in the 80-year old oak console is more pink than the new oak I used for the swell box and other panels.  Plus, you will notice that some of the boards within the console are very different colors.  The photo above shows that pretty well- the far left is darker than the center top (unstained).The center bottom is newly stained.  The piece to the right is a scrap left over from the swell box.  I was able to blend the two stains to get pretty even coloring between all the parts.  The picture below shows the console after staining.

For the varnish, I decided to use an old-fashioned alkyd varnish with a satin finish.  It is much clearer than polyurethane, which can get cloudy and obscure the wood grain.  Plus, I don't really need the added durability of polyurethane.  Although I am not striving to do a period restoration, alkyd is what was most likely used on the console originally.  My first coat was thinned by half with mineral spirits to serve as a 'sealer coat'.  The next four coats were thinned by about 25% to achieve a faster build.  Thinning also allowed me to apply the varnish with a rag.  I was able to really rub the varnish into the pores and wipe off the excess as I went.  This caused the pores to become partially filled without rounding over.  It looks much like an old-fashioned hand-rubbed oil finish.  The only problem was that the varnish would become tacky before I could completely coat the larger pieces, leaving some rag tracks.  I sanded lightly between coats and before the topcoat to remove any dust nibs.  The top coat was thinned by about 60% to slow the drying time and leave a very uniform sheen.  I had to work rather fast applying the varnish, so I didn't take time to set up the camera.

I still need to apply furniture paste wax to even out the sheen and give it a little more scratch resistance, but there isn't any hurry getting that done.

Console Staining Album