How do you go about matching stain color when patching woodwork? I had to replace a couple of oak floor boards, and had a difficult time getting the new color to match. I now have about 8-9 different 1/2 pint cans of stain, but there has to be a better way. The color charts sure aren’t much help, since they are ink on paper.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell’em “Certainly, I can!” Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
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I take a sample of old stained wood and new raw matching wood to the best paint store in town and for 5.00 they get it as close as humanly possible. And will keep trying until I'm happy.
Plus if you're not shade blind like myself, they'll give you samples of the base pigments so you can tint on site if you want.
If I was better with color I'd hire a guy who mixes and matches on site and ask him to teach me....
cheers,
hihosilver
Matching stain is an art. I've only met a handful in my lifetime that could do a perfect match.
If you have a custom stain company in your area, that would be the place to start. If you bring them a sample they will get close, but the on-site guys are amazing.
The new guy I've got uses products and techniques I am totaly unfamiliar with.
He makes me look very good.
A few $$ but worth every penny.
local paint stores will color match as was said early.
I've also had good luck using artist pigments to tint stain to the shade I needed.
Feelin lucky here. Sherwin matches stuff for me all the time for free. But it's still a hassle. A few years ago, I started carrying an assortment of Transtint dyes for stuff like that. And fortunately, I do seem to have an eye for color. One bonus of the dyes is you can putter around with them on a scrap whilst sitting right on the floor you're trying to match. The alcohol soluable part - no grain raising. And you can apply mulitple coats to deepen the color. And lastly, if the wood is holding all the dye it can, or if you forsee that as a likely scenario, a real dilute mix of blonde shellac can act as a binder and enable you to progressively layer more and more color on until you have what you want. Accolade - spray it. Brushing will just muck it up. And make sure you are getting a very fine mist out of the gun, or you create problems that look like pimples. You can turn a natural oak piece into deep red mahogany in a couple of hours - 15 real light coats, ten minutes apart or so. Pretty fast dry with the alcohol.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
What CAG said....I make most of my own stains using tubes of oil artist paint, linseed oil, japan dryer, and turpentine.
Get a book on it. Its really not all that difficult.
The key is to write down the measurements you use of everything in case you need more.
Be well
andy
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
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Get a book on it. Any suggestions?Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Ed
I have a good one somewhere in my library...I'll look for it later...I think its one of those Time Life softcover cheapies. Its pretty good actually.
Hope I can find it....or you might wanna Google "making your own stain" but I can only imagine what that title would come up with...lol
Be well
andyThe secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,
I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM