Wood Finishing: There are few woods easier to finish than red oak. Whether you want it stained and sporting a bulletproof topcoat, or have its natural oak glow shining through, you can’t go wrong with red oak.
Red Oak Finish
I’ve been there myself. You’ve worked hard to get your project to the point where it’s looking good, really good, and you don’t want to mess it up with a finish that’s anything less than terrific. Look no further because here is my tried and proven, easy red oak finish.
Surface Preparation
It almost goes without saying that every project needs to be properly prepared before being finished. In fact, the vast majority of finishes are ruined or less than perfect as a result of cutting corners at this essential stage. This includes ensuring there’s no residual glue anywhere and that the surface is free of any machining marks or sanding scratches. Once the surface has been properly hand planed or sanded, you’re ready to begin.
Grain Filling
Red oak is an open-grained hardwood, much like ash, walnut or mahogany.
Whether flat-sawn or quarter-sawn, you need to apply grain filler if you’re interested in having a pore-filled finish. That having been stated, my easy red oak finish largely negates any need for grain filling, as the stain and the topcoat are thixotropic oil-based gels that act as though they have fillers in them. Now, how’s that for a time-saver?
Thixotropic: Describes a material which undergoes a reduction in viscosity when shaken, stirred or otherwise mechanically disturbed and which readily recovers the original condition on standing.
Required Materials
Gel finishes are fortunately now being made by a number of the most common finish manufacturers. These oil-based gels are easy to use and provide excellent non-blotching coverage on difficult-to-stain woods such as cherry, pine, birch or maple. Instead of rags for applying these finishes, try using durable, long-lasting, lint-free paper towels.
Staining
If you’ve elected to stain the bare wood, don’t sand down any finer than 120 grit, or else your stain won’t take as well and you’ll be forced to add additional coats. Follow the instructions on the can and thoroughly stir the stain. Fold your paper towel into quarters then dip it into the tin to get a generous amount of stain. Apply the stain using a circular motion then leave it on for approximately four minutes before rubbing any excess off with a clean paper towel, rubbed parallel to the grain.
If the colour isn’t dark enough, wait patiently until the stain has set fully before applying a second coat. Note, however that the topcoat will usually darken the stain somewhat, so be careful not to go too dark. If you don’t wait for the stain to dry thoroughly, the next coat of stain will act as a solvent and actually lighten the finish instead of darkening it. Patience is a virtue and a necessary component of all finishing tasks.
Because this is an oil-based stain, the application rags need to be fully dried in the open before being disposed of in the garbage. My usual practice is to lay the finish-soaked towels over the lip of the garbage can overnight. Once the stain has completely dried and you are fully satisfied with the colour, move along to applying the protective topcoat.
Staining has been receiving an unfair rap in some circles, and that’s unfortunate. One of stain’s finest characteristics is its ability to blend in what may otherwise be considered blemishes that would detract from an otherwise beautiful finish. Lighter sapwood areas on a board, or otherwise lighter sections or panels of a project may also need to be stained to even out their colour. In these cases, staining the affected area will help it blend in with the rest of the piece.
Topcoating
Topcoats are applied in much the same way as stain, using a clean paper towel loaded with the gel finish and moved in a circular motion. Work on only one area at a time or your finish will begin to set before you’ve had the opportunity to remove the excess with a fresh towel. Once that has been done, take out another fresh towel and buff it with the grain. Continue moving over the entire piece, one section at a time until all areas have been covered. Apply two more coats, waiting patiently for the finish to dry thoroughly between each before seeing if additional coats are required. Let the finish dry at least overnight before subjecting it to use. It should look flawless and inspire you to try your hand at finishing even more complex pieces. Now, that was simple, wasn’t it?
Using gloves will prevent your skin from matching your project when applying gel stain
Use a lint-free, durable paper towel to wipe off excess using strokes parallel to grain direction
If a natural look is desired, skip the gel stain and use the topcoat gel finish
Use of Canadian Woodworking's Website and It's Content
This website is presented with the understanding that:
The authors, editors and related web personnel are not responsible for the results of any actions taken on the basis of information on this website, nor for any errors or omissions;
This website is not engaged in rendering professional advice/services; and
Any and all content submitted by this website's users is in no way an expression of the beliefs or opinions of the owners, webmasters, authors and editors.
Canadian Woodworking disclaims all liability for any claim in relation to:
• any matters or factors outside of its control, including the availability or unavailability of the website and digital content due to the availability of the Internet, or telecommunications or other infrastructure systems; for any reasons including but not limited to power outages and maintenance.
The owners, webmasters, administrators, authors and editors, expressly disclaim all and any liability to any person, whether a user of this website or not, in respect of anything and of the consequences of anything done or omitted to be done by any such person in reliance, whether whole or partial, upon the whole or any part of the contents of this website. Please exercise caution when working with any tools or machinery. Follow common safety rules and precautions as outlined in any manuals related to the equipment being used. If advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Use of Canadian Woodworking site and Forum
By posting on this site and forum, the poster grants to Canadian Woodworking Magazine/Website the unrestricted rights to use of the content of the post for any purpose, including, but not limited to, publishing the posted material, including images, in print or electronic form in a future issue or issues of Canadian Woodworking magazine or related Canadian Woodworking products, and to use the post for promotional purposes without further compensation, as well as the right to use the poster's name in a credit along with the post.
CanadianWoodworking never shares, sells or rents your information to any third party without your permission.
This statement explains how we collect information from you and what we do with that information.
What this Privacy Policy Covers
This Privacy Policy covers CanadianWoodworking.com's treatment of personally identifiable information that CanadianWoodworking.com collects when you are on the CanadianWoodworking.com site, and when you use CanadianWoodworking.com's services. This policy also covers CanadianWoodworking.com's treatment of any personally identifiable information that CanadianWoodworking.com's business partners share with CanadianWoodworking.com.
This policy does not apply to the practices of companies that CanadianWoodworking.com does not own or control, or to people that CanadianWoodworking.com does not employ or manage.
Information Requests and Use
CanadianWoodworking.com collects personally identifiable information when you use certain CanadianWoodworking.com services, when you visit CanadianWoodworking.com pages, and when you enter promotions or sweepstakes. CanadianWoodworking.com may also receive personally identifiable information from our business partners.
Personally identifying information is information that can be used to identify who you are such as: name, mailing address, email address. To enter certain areas of the site, you will be required to register and provide information about yourself. This information is for the purposes of Canadian Woodworking and helps us to tailor the site to best meet the needs of our audience.
CanadianWoodworking.com also automatically receives and records information on our server logs from your browser including your IP address, CanadianWoodworking.com cookie information and the page you requested.
CanadianWoodworking.com uses information for three general purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, and to fulfill your requests for certain products and services.
Promotions
The personal information that we retain is what is provided by you voluntarily. We use it to send you information about Canadian Woodworking and its products or to correspond with you regarding your subscription. If you are a subscriber we need this information to be able to deliver you our product(s) and service your subscription.
By completing a form on this website, you will be able to receive email correspondence from Canadian Woodworking. These emails may include information on upcoming events or special offers for subscribers. If you do not wish to receive email correspondence please email [email protected] and ask to be removed from our email list. Every email that we send to you will include an "opt-out" from receiving future email correspondence.
Aggregate information is information that cannot identify you personally. We collect information on our subscribers that may be used in summary reports presented to our advertisers. This information helps them to better understand our audience and provide advertisements that are more likely to be of interest to you and your organization.
Our intention is always to gather information that will help us serve you better and never to gather information without your knowledge.
As with most websites, we do log web visits. This information, however, does not have a link to you personally. These logs help us understand the needs of our audience and the areas of our site that you do or do not find useful. When you simply browse our site, no personal information is being collected. We may disclose this non-personal information to third parties such as sponsors, clients or advertisers.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
CanadianWoodworking.com will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to anyone.
CanadianWoodworking.com will send personally identifiable information about you to other companies or people when:
We have your consent to share the information;
We need to share your information to provide the product or service you have requested;
We need to send the information to companies who work on behalf of CanadianWoodworking.com to provide a product or service to you. (Unless we tell you differently, these companies do not have any right to use the personally identifiable information we provide to them beyond what is necessary to assist us.);
We respond to subpoenas, court orders or legal process; or
We find that your actions on our web sites violate the CanadianWoodworking.com Terms of Service or any of our usage guidelines for specific products or services.
Cookies
CanadianWoodworking.com may set and access CanadianWoodworking.com cookies on your computer.
Cookies are small text files that most Web sites, including canadianwoodworking.com place on your computer. Cookies help us identify your interests. They also prevent you from having to register repeatedly on canadianwoodworking.com or from repeatedly seeing the same ads.
Canadianwoodworking.com is not able, and does not wish, to use cookies to track your activities on the Web outside of our site. And no cookie delivered by us will interfere with the operation of your computer.
In cases where there are links to other sites, Canadian Woodworking recommends that you review their organization's privacy policy, as once you have left our site you become subject to the privacy and security policies of the new site.
Third party advertising
If you submit your name through a form on our website to request information from an advertiser or third party, canadianwoodworking.com is not responsible for any marketing or other use of your name by that third party.
Security
In certain areas CanadianWoodworking.com uses industry-standard SSL-encryption to protect data transmissions.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
CanadianWoodworking.com may amend this policy from time to time. By using this site, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. Canadian Woodworking reserves the right to make changes to this policy at any time. Please check back periodically to review any changes.
Questions or Suggestions
If you have questions or suggestions please contact us.