Properly Prepare your Wood for Staining and Painting
Once you’ve selected the wood that you’re going to stain or paint, which can be a major investment depending on wood type, it’s time to prepare it properly. Our goal it to get a professional looking finish the first time. The steps include starting with “clean” wood, smoothing, and ensuring your end grain and boards look even when you sand.
Start with “clean” Wood
Your wood should be clean of pervious paint, stain, dirt, and what-have-you. If you’re painting or applying a gel stain, you may not have to strip away the prior project as much.
My DIY / weekend warrior “shop” setup is simple. It’s my garage, driveway, or side yard (a lot of times it’s the garage because we do get a wee bit of rain in the Pacific Northwest). My tools aren’t overly fancy either. Some moderately priced tools, a couple of folding tables that aren’t the most level and an uneven garage floor add to the fun of these build projects.
Remove High Spots
The goal is to make quick work of removing wood that you’re not going to cut with a saw. I recently purchased an electric hand planer and highly recommend it as it makes quick work of evening the high points where boards could be slightly cupped or didn’t set perfectly together with the glue up. A more expensive route, is a large planer where you ideally would feed the boards through before the glue up.
TIP: Lift the planer before the end of the board. Else, perfect the gentle lift. I recently had to shorten a project by 3/4 inch because the planer bit into the end of the board – there was no filling and sanding my way out of that. See common errors below.
Wood working also has a lot of sanding. Buy a good sander (and dust mask). If you’re tackling multiple projects or like to collect tools, consider buying two. A belt sander makes for short work when material removal is the name-of-the-game. An orbital sander is how I’ve managed to get through all my projects. Occasionally relying on my planer, and occasionally a router.
TIP: Dropping a spun-up orbital sander onto your wood can cause a semi-circular burr that may stay invisible until you stain. Start your sander and ease it onto the wood before it’s up to speed.
Sanding, sanding, and more sanding
Wood Surface Preparation: I like to go through a cascading sandpaper grit – start with an 80 grit piece to smooth the surface, including removing all glue if you did a glue-up. Left over glue residue will reduce stain absorption in that area. Once satisfied, rub your wood and make sure it’s smooth-ish and all edges and high spots are removed. Now, time to go through a 100/120 grit, 180/220 grit. Each time, impress yourself with how smooth your wood is feeling.
End Grain Preparation: this is where you can make your project look like a professional piece. The goal, defend the end grain from soaking up too much stain. You should already have it 220-ish grit smooth – now its time to pull out a 320/400 grit and make it smoother. This will help close the wood pores and reduce stain absorption.
Finish up: Vacuum the wood and shop space (or get out the blower) and wipe wood clean with a damp rag. Let dry.
Tools
- Plunge router and 3/4-inch straight router bit
- Wood Glue
- Quick clamps, self-standing clamps, and F-clamps (never enough clamps)
- Orbital Sander and Hand Planer
- Basics: pencil, blue tape, tape measure
Apply a Wood Conditioner
Applying a wood conditioner is crucial for a consistent finish. The Minwax pre-stain wood conditioner I use recommends staining within 2 hours of application. The goal is to pre-stain/condition wood when you’re ready to move into your staining project. I have found wood conditioner less important with gel-based and water-based stains.
I’ve read that can also thin your poly with varnish and apply a thin coat to the end grain. I have yet to do that as sanding with a 400+ grit and applying 2 to 3 coats of wood conditioner has worked just fine for me.
Happy sanding….
