Experimenting with Stain

Unlike previous models where they were mostly painted, with some wood left bare, this time I want to use a mixture of paint and wood stain.  It will be awhile before I am ready to do any actually staining on the Mayflower but, since I've never done any staining before, after a bit of reading on some model ship forums, I was ready to experiment.

First, I found a bunch of scrap wood from previous kits and created some simulated decking and hull planking.  For the small decking section, I also marked one edge of each piece using the edge of a pencil before gluing it in place - a trick to make the deck lines stand out.  I'm not sure if I'm going to do this on the hull planking when the time comes, so I just glued those pieces in place without doing anything special to them.

 

With the glue dried, I next sand each piece with 100 grit, and then 180 grit sandpaper (the higher the grit, the finer the sandpaper - depending on what grit you use, the stain would "behave" differently, supposedly looking better with the finer grit).  After the 180 grit, I did 3/4 of each piece using 220 grit, then 1/2 using 320 and finally 1/4 using 400 grit (so the 400 grit had previously been sanded using 320, 220, 180 and 100).

For the decking piece - since it is short - I did it up to 220 for 1/2 and then up to 400 for the other half.

With the 3 pieces ready to go, I began the actual staining process (the following all used Minwax oil-based products).

I brushed pre-conditioner to the top half of each section, leaving the bottom half the plain sanded wood.  I think the pre-conditioner opens the pours in the wood, so the actual stain adheres better and reduces blotches in the finished product, but I wanted to try both methods to see the difference in the finished product.

Following the instructions, I used a paint brush to apply the pre-conditioner, left it for about 15 minutes then wiped any excess that was left with a lint free cloth.  There wasn't really anything left to wipe up - did I maybe put it on too thin?

 

 

Next I stained 1 piece with Golden Oak, 1 with Puritan Pine and the decking with Natural.  I also had a 4th stain - Ipswich Pine, but I didn't think to create a 4th piece of scrap 'til after I was finished sanding, so I simply used a piece of wood to stir that and set it aside (so it had no sanding or pre-conditioner).

After letting them sit for about 10 minutes (the instructions say 5-15 minutes - the longer it sits, the deeper the stain adheres), I can't really see a big difference...  maybe I didn't sand enough using each type of paper, or maybe I put too thin a layer on (or both)...  I am going to apply a 2nd layer of stain and then use Polyurethane for the finish, but if that doesn't significantly alter the appearance, I will likely go with 220 grit for the hull planking and use the pre-conditioner.  For the decking, I'll use 320 and the pre-conditioner.

Natural:

 
Puritan Pine on top, and Golden Oak below:

 
Stir sticks (from left-to-right - Puritan Pine, Natural, Golden Oak, Ipswich Pine):

For the colours, Natural looks good for the decking, and I think I'll use Puritan Pine for the hull (fitting, considering it's the Mayflower I'm building) and any other dark wood on the ship.  Ipswich Pine is a nice in-between colour - not too dark and not too light - which should be good for any other wood.  Golden Oak is fine, but too golden...

After 2nd coat (from top-to-bottom - Natural, Golden Oak, Puritan Pine):

 

 
After 2nd coat (from left-to-right - Puritan Pine, Golden Oak, Natural):

 

 

 

After the Polyurethane (the finish - not really much difference that I can tell, other than it is shinier and better protected):

 

 

 

 

Some additional test using MinWax Wood-Sheen and Express (2 water based products).  These were both applied by squeezing stain from the containers onto scrap wood and then wiping with a cloth (the above tests were all done with a brush).

 

MinWax Express (Oak) - 1 application, no sanding or pre-conditioner:

MinWax Wood-Sheen (Colonial Walnut) - 2 applications, no sanding or pre-conditioner: 

 



These both seemed to turn out quite well, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to apply them to the actual ship... When you squeeze the bottle it comes out in a blob which you then wipe into the wood (the Express seemed to be more of a liquid, so was a bit messier than the Wood-sheen).  That worked fine on this simple test strips, but it would be harder to get right when trying to work in small areas...