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| Leave it to the pro. Michael Dresdner, a nationally known wood finishing and woodworking expert, has answered hundreds of common wood finishing questions in Varathane’s Q&A library to help you successfully complete your project. Click on a link to the left for help and solid advice. |
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| Q: I have a client that applied a wood preserver to the exterior of her front door. It does not do the job of protecting her door from the sun and has faded out in less than three months. She has asked me to recondition the door. I believe the wood preserver has waxes in it. I’d like to apply stain and Varathane spar urethane. How can I prepare the surface so that it will adhere?
A: You are correct in your assessment about the preserver. The brand you named is a mix of waxes and non-drying oils. Unfortunately, while removing wax is fairly easy, removing oils is more difficult. For the record, neither can be sanded out, since sanding simply moves wax and oil around and lets you drive it deeper into the wood as you sand.
Start by scrubbing the surface with copious amounts of mineral spirits on fine nylon abrasive pads, then sop up the resulting slurry with paper shop towels. You may have to do this several times until the towels wipe clean and no more oil is being removed. The wood should be clean and dry before you proceed.
You can check by lightly sanding with 220 grit paper to see if the wood powders, which means it is clean, or creates gummy patches on the sandpaper, which means it is not. If not, scrub with lacquer thinner, and possibly even paint remover. The point is, you want to get that oil back out of the wood. When it is clean, it should sport the dry look of raw wood. Once there, stain with a 100% pigmented stain, such as Varathane oil based stain, which will not fade, and top that with several coats of oil based spar urethane. Incidentally, keep an eye on how fast the stain dries. If it dries too slowly, that’s an indication that all the oil may not be out of the wood. |  | |
| Q: Do I need to use wood conditioner on pine doors or can I just put three coats of Varathane diamond oil base on them?
A: Wood conditioner works in conjunction with stain only. It helps prevent blotching from oil based stain on certain woods. If you are staining the pine doors with oil based stain, then yes, use wood conditioner first. If you are not staining, wood conditioner is not necessary. | | |
| Q: Do I need wood conditioner if I plan to stain an exterior pine door?
A: If you plan to use an oil based stain, yes. Flood wood conditioner liberally onto well sanded wood, wipe it all off and stain while it is still wet using the stain the same way; flood it on and wipe it all off while wet, leaving only what the wood has absorbed. The conditioner will make the stain take more evenly. Since it is an exterior door, use a 100% pigmented stain, such as Varathane. Unlike dyes, pigment stains don’t fade. | | |
| Q: My existing red oak kitchen cabinets have a Watco satin natural oil finish. They need to be cleaned and a new coat of oil applied. What preparation and cleaning method do you recommend?
A: Clean the surface by scrubbing with mineral spirits or TSP on fine nylon abrasive pads. The solvent will remove any surface grease or oil while the pad lightly abrades the surface. Once the cabinets are clean and dry, apply another coat of Watco. |
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