Stain

If you want to change the way your furniture looks and add a weatherproof coating on them, then the easiest way to achieve it is to use wood stain on them. They are easy to apply, affordable, and the coating can last for a really long time.

People have been staining wood for hundreds of years. You can see stained wood inside medieval buildings across Europe and America. But they have only increased in popularity ever since people first started using them. Using a good quality wood stain, and with a little skill, you can make any piece of furniture look like they are made out of high-quality exotic wood. The best part is that it won’t cost you much. Read this article to know more about wood stains. Having a better understanding of them will help you make the right choices when you are shopping.

Different types of wood stains

One great thing about stains is that they come in a lot of different types with a lot of different textures and finishes. You can get clear coat finish, semitransparent finish or a completely opaque finish. You can use any one of them depending on whether or not you want the original texture of the wood to show or not. Because of the mass-production techniques that are perfected over the years, and due to the availability of synthetic formulas that are really easy to produce in large quantities, the price of wood colour has come down dramatically over the years.

Oil-based

Oil-based ones are the most widely used type of wood stain. This is not surprising as they are really affordable and easily available. The main component of oil stain, linseed oil, comes from nature. Because of that, this type of stain is non-toxic. The chemical properties of oil stain also allow you to easily clean up spills. Therefore, you don’t have to worry much even if you make some inconsistencies when you apply the stain. Hence, this translates into a faster workflow as you don’t have to put a lot of attention to every single stroke of your brush.

Wood varnish

The finish you get when you use wood varnish is almost similar to that of the oil stain. But in this case, the ingredients are completely artificial. Because of that, it is easy to create a formulation that gives you the best results. Therefore, it is not surprising that a coat of varnish dries out much faster than oil stain and provides a consistent and hard coat with little effort. But there is also a downside. If you apply an uneven coat of varnish, it is harder to remove than if it were oil stain. So, you will have to scrub off the old layer and paint it again.

Water-based

As you can probably tell from the name itself, a water-based stain is just a regular paint dissolved in a water medium. The benefit of this type of paint is that they are natural and do not contain any ingredients that can potentially cause any irritation. And compared to other types of wood stains, this is incredibly cheap. But all the good things in life come with some downsides. Similarly, there are a few disadvantages of water-based wood stains. It requires much more experience and skill to get a good finish with them. The grains inside wood rise up when it gets wet. So, you will have to sand it off before applying the final coat.

Gel

This is basically an oil-based paint with a thick consistency similar to mayonnaise. As you can imagine, applying this paint on a wood surface can be difficult and messy. But it is worth going through because the finish that you will get using this is superior to other types of stains. You are pretty much guaranteed to get a shiny, splotch free coat if you are using this wood stain. So, if you are ready to put in a bit of work to get a superior finish, then you should probably consider using a gel stain. Gel stain is especially ideal for staining pine wood.