White wash finish -- liming?

[yvonne.lee]

Hi

Hoping someone can help us.

My husband and I are finishing off a weekender and after a lot of trial and error (lots of error!) we have finally gotten a decent finish on our (pine) stairs using a combination of Cabots CFP (2 coats) and Cabots Woodcraft stain (about 6 coats) and a further 2 coats of Cabots CFP... however we are still having two problems.

I'll list the two problems in separate threads.

Our ceiling panels are tongue and groove pine. We thought we would just 'oil' it to protect and used some sort of decking oil... (bad mistake). It looks OK and feels OK just that it is very very yellow.

The finish we really want (in retrospect!) is a white washed look / transparent but EVEN white finish. So we tried the Feast Watson Liming Solution (http://www.feastwatson.com.au/WoodstainsLimingSolution.asp)... however that has gone on very badly and we find it difficult to apply (as we have to wipe it off and some of is stuck in the corners etc etc. I have seen Integrain have a nice looking product UltraClear which we can have tinted in white (Intergrain - UltraClear Interior (http://www.intergrain.com.au/ultraclearinterior.html)) and also seen there are a number of Porters products (http://www.porterspaints.com/paints/speciality-finishes/wood-wash and Naturals ? Milk Paint (http://www.porterspaints.com/paints/naturals/milk-paint)) which may be suitable)

Can anyone recommend a suitable product that we can use to get a nice even finish over the oiled surface (it doesnt feel oily anymore) or at least an easy to use product (as I think we're resigned to having sand the whole thing back :C)

TIA
Yvonne

[Charles Castle]

Yvonne, I have always been wary of using stains because I have found them so difficult to use and particularly to get an even result. A recent book that I read talked about gel stains. The only one I could find at Bunnings was Wattyl wood gel. There is no white, and the lightest was called aged baltic. However this is very, very easy to apply. There may be other brands. The usual caveats apply - try on scrap first, etc. This really is very easy to use. The other problem was I could only buy it in a small tube of 200 ml from Bunnings. Wattyl does have very helpful technical department, telephone 132 101, and they may be able to tell you where to get increased quantities or about different colours.
Charles

[yvonne.lee]

Thanks Charles.

We have a tube of the Wood Gel in wenge (dark dark brown). Stupid thing is we always do test on a piece of scrap but because the scrap usually is some flat(ish) piece we don't get the pooling effect or any imperfections on the wood that grabs the colour. So we get this wonderful finish on the scrap (after x number coats and x number of days of testing this piece of scrap) and then we do the real thing... grrrrrrrr...

The Wood Gel is nice but unfortunately won't give us the nice white finish we are after.

Keep the ideas coming in though!

btw the latest idea is just to water down some (water based) white paint and paint it on! Is that OK?