Removing Excess Stain

[RobinAdams]

Hi, my girlfriend had given me the task of refinishing some Teak furniture that we own. Unfortunately, I didn't do any research before hand and have realized that after successfully stripping the furniture, I have applied the stain wrong. A month ago my girlfriend stained our closet door by applying the stain with a foam brush in multiple coats to achieve the colour we wanted. The results were pretty good. So, I followed the same procedure with the Teak furniture and after several coats of stain I finally read the instructions on the can and realized that the stain needs to be removed by a cloth 15 min. after it is applied. I have now removed most of the stain by reapplying more stain and then removing it with a cloth. The only problem is that the first couple of coats of stain was allowed to dry over a couple of days and there are portions that are hard to remove. What remains is patches of a thick, gummy substance (obviously the large amounts of stain that were applied). Does any one have some advice on how to remove this easily ? Any products ? I've been able to remove a lot by a plastic scraper and rubbing with a cloth, but it's taking forever.

[MacS]

Robin,

Do you know what type of stain it is?

Is it a dye or a pigment, an oil, alcohol, water. stain.

Look at the label, and see what it tells you to do for "clean up."In most cases, that might be the right solvent to use. If not, let us know.

[astrid]

I agree with macS,
sounds like an oil based stain
macs suggestion should get rid of the gummy stuff but the problem with teak is the open grain, the stain sinks into the pores and you are going to have to scrub with steel wool fineish grade , to even it up.
I am a great believer that timber is the colour that nature intended.
you can gently coax it a lighter or darker tone to what it is but radical colour chnges seldom look natural.
good luck
astrid

[MacS]

Astrid,

Don't take this personal, but I disagree, I am very familar with factory and custom finishes.

If you take almost every bed or dining room suite of furntiure, and just look at all the woods that make up each piece of furniture, then compare each of the pieces for color, no one color will look the same on all those woods.

Today, they use colored toners, depending on the final color they want to acheive they select a color for the toner which is called the base color, this is not opaque, it is transparent, there is very little color in the toner, this will unify all the different woods with one color. Then the toner is sealed to kept that color from shifting, as other colored meduims are added like stains, glazes, and shading stains to create a finish were the woods grains and other marking as still visable when the final coats are applied.

Almost, just about all furniture factories use this technique, in fact, they are known as "factory finishes."

I will post a photo later, showing a factory finish using 4 different woods, once the entire suite is finished and assembled, its hard to tell its a factory finish, because of the uniformity of color on all the piece, on the 4 samples the pieces are small and close together. I need to go find the photo, but I shall return.

[astrid]

macs you are speaking a different language and dont seem to understand
I dont like factory finishes, i dont like artificial tints, i dont like polyerothane
i am an antique restorer.

astrid

[MacS]

macs you are speaking a different language and dont seem to understand
I dont like factory finishes, i dont like artificial tints, i dont like polyerothane
i am an antique restorer.

astrid

Astrid,

My postings are not just for you, there maybe others that may find my postings interesting, and may want to give them a try.

Because, you are a antique restorer, don't be close minded, you certainly don't know it all. At least your smart enough to come to this forum when your stuck, and lately you have admited you have been stuck.

Conservators, have begun realizing they can learn a lot from fine finisher, there has been dialogue for years here with them, they are using epoxy putty to do certain repairs now, which was taboo not to long ago. They also have accepted finger coloring and padding with color. They have loosened "there way, or no way."

Keep an open mind, there is to much to learn in a life time about this business, thinking your only going to do things only your way, will only hurt you in the long run.

I wish you well, this is my last post to you.

[astrid]

I am not an expert finisher, I would love to do boule work and be able to repair parquetry this is a skill learned over many years .
however love of old timber and skill to take it where it wants to go is what makes my work a joy.
a 300 yo table has its own charicter that one dosent mess with.

astrid

[RobinAdams]

Sorry for the long wait on my reply. I removed the excess stain and restained with a darker colour. It still didn't look the way that I wanted. So I think I am going to re strip the whole thing and sand it down again and start over. Now I need advice on how to get the colour that I want. I have some pics to show you what I have to work with and what I want to achieve.

[MacS]

Post them up.

[RobinAdams]

first pic shows kinda what I would like the finish to look like and also what the original wood looks like bare.

[RobinAdams]

This pic shows the multiple coats of stain. It looks pretty decent to me in some spots but you can see areas that I am not happy with

[RobinAdams]

This last pic is of the new stain that I put on after removing the old excess stain and staining a second coat over the first one. Looks good, but nowhere near dark enough for my liking

[MacS]

Are you looking for a dark red mahogany, or a brown mahogany?

Its difficult to tell from the photos.

Maybe, you could check some color charts where you buy your supplies.

[RobinAdams]

The first two pics are with Red Mahogany, the last pic I did with Ebony....not really the result I was looking for.

[RobinAdams]

Here's a pic of the closet door that I had originally mentioned. This was stained with Red Mahogany and it was down with multiple coats without whiping anything off. The door is pine. I'd like to achieve something similar to this colour.