35 water based stains

I'm Steve Maxwell and I want to show you the secret to making the most of wood

which is finishing. And finishing that not only looks good, but it's also easy to prepare. I've

got some samples here of water-based urethane finish that I want to show you. As you can see

it comes in a whole bunch of different colors. You needn't use these non-traditional colors

the regular brown or even unstained and clearly sealed is an option. But whatever you choose

there are some techniques you have to put into practice if you want that wood to look great

Let's get started right now with the first part of the process, which is sanding. To show you

exactly how to apply this kind of finish, I'm going to use this piece of pine board. It's top

grade wood and it's as smooth as you can expect wood to be coming from the lumberyard, but there's

still a problem with it. You might be tempted to put a finish directly on this wood, but that would

be a huge mistake. You'd never get good results unless you do some sanding first. Take a close

look and I'll show you what I mean. On the surface, if you look closely, you'll see the undulation

marks left behind by the thickness planer that smoothened this wood. It's those marks that you

need to take off and the first tool you use for that is the belt sander

Well, I've just gone over the wood with a 100 grit belt in the belt sander and I've

removed all of those mill marks you saw a few seconds ago. The thing is though, that the belt

sander is still a fairly coarse tool. Even if I had a very fine belt on that sander, it's still

likely to leave gouges and scratches. If I didn't hold the sander exactly parallel to the grain

there's going to be some cross-grain scratching there. It's very hard to see at this stage

but it comes right out when you put the stain on it. That's why I have step two

which is using this half sheet vibrating sander. The key to using the half sheet vibrating sander

is to use it with a light pressure. I've got 120 grit sandpaper on here. I was moving it back and

forth with the grain. The results are considerably smoother than with the belt sander. To be honest

I could probably go right to stain right now, but just to make sure I've got a flawless surface

there is a third sanding step. It doesn't take very long. It's similar to this one

but it uses a quarter sheet finishing sander, a palm sander, which we'll also use later on for

our between coat sanding. For now, we're just going to use it to refine the wood that last

little bit before we start putting some liquid on this piece of pine

The quarter sheet finishing sander is a great tool. It's small and light. In this case

I've used 180 grit sandpaper for that final sanding pass on the wood before we get to the

staining and urethane. When I come to use this for sanding between coats, which I'll explain

in a minute or two, I'll switch to 220 grit paper in that case. If you can, vacuum the surface clean

Dust is your enemy at this stage. Now, if you're working on a job site, you could use a shop vac

or even a hand broom used vigorously will probably be enough. But sanding wood is entirely different

operation than finishing wood. Finishing has got to be done in a surgically clean situation

and that's what we're creating now. At this stage, you have a choice to make. Well

you've probably made the choice before, but you're going to go in one of two directions right now. You can either stain the wood. I've got a range of colors here. There's a traditional

brownish color and a red and a blue, or you can go directly to sealing the finish. You'll need

to seal on top of the stain too. In this case, we're using a water-based urethane, but if you're

going to go with staining, then there's a step you need to do before you add the color, and that's

the application of a pre-stained conditioner. What that does is it evens out the absorbency

so you get much more smooth color. Water-based products have very low odor, and they dry very

quickly. You might be wondering, though, if it's water-based, isn't the finish water-soluble? These

products are water-soluble and water clean up when they're wet, but as they dry, they undergo

a chemical change that makes them insoluble in water. They're actually quite a tough and durable

finish. Another advantage is that they don't yellow with age. If you want to preserve a very white

finish on the wood, then a water-based urethane on its own is the way to go. Now, this is the

pre-stained conditioner, and I've applied an even coat, and we're going to let that dry before we

come back and put some stain on. I'm going to let this dry for 15 to 30 minutes before I put the

stain on, but before I do, I'm just going to wipe off all the excess. We don't want any of the

pre-stained conditioner sealing the surface or forming a film on it. We just want to slake the

thirst of that bare wood. Pre-stained conditioner has done its job. It's soaked in. We've wiped it

off. It's dried a little bit. If you detect any roughness at all, go over it with a piece of 240

grit sandpaper in your hand, and that'll remove any of the grain that was raised as it soaked up

the water-based conditioner. Before you get started with the stain, give it a good stir. There's

pigments that you need to churn up from the bottom. When the color of the stain becomes consistent

then you know you've got it completely mixed. Now comes the fun part, putting on some stain

You want to put it on fairly thick. You're going to wipe it off again, just like we did with the

conditioner. When it goes on, it looks just like paint, but that's not what stain's all about. When

we wipe it, we're going to reveal some of the wood grain underneath, and that's what makes this

combination look so good. The Minwax water-based stains that I prefer come in lots of non-traditional

colors like you see here, as well as a whole bunch of shades of brown if you want to stick with

something more conventional. This, of course, is water-based stain that we've just put on, and it

dries fairly quickly, so you don't want to let the stain sit on the wood for too long before you

wipe it off, revealing that all-important wood grain underneath. You do want to remove everything

from the surface. It's only the liquid that's soaked in below the surface that you want to

remain. We've got the stain on the wood, and it's got to be allowed to dry completely before the next

step. Now, one note of caution. This doesn't really look all that impressive yet, even though it's a

really good staining job. The reason is because it doesn't have the depth of color that the urethane

brings out. What you need to do next is to coat with one coat of urethane and let it dry. Then

give it another coat of urethane, that's a second one, and when it's completely dry, lightly sand

the surface with 220 grit sandpaper, either in the quarter sheet palm sander I showed you before

or by hand in any intricate areas. Give it a third coat, but don't sand after that last coat. What

you're probably going to find at that stage is that the urethane looks something like this sample

This is pretty typical, especially when you're using water-based urethanes. As you can see

there are some bumps, little specks of dust have fallen on the surface and hardened there. Because

water-based urethane dries so quickly, there's likely to be brush marks. If there were any

bubbles in the liquid as you put it on, they might harden in place too. It looks pretty ugly. What you

need to do to fix this is something that I've never seen anyone else do before with water-based

urethanes, but it works really well. That's using a random orbit sander with a 3M rubbing pad to

refine that surface and bring it up to a beautiful, shiny, silky gloss like you see here on this sample