Post #138529 by Aaron's Akua on Mon, Jan 31, 2005 1:51 PM

Okay, anyone ever have this problem?

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Got my tiki stained last weekend.

I just wanted to bring out the grain a little, so I used Olympic "Natural" oil based stain. It's so light it just looks like clear oil on your fingers.

It bought out the grain real nice with a golden tone.

Turns out my tiki has a nice big birth mark in the middle of his face! The wood there is really yellowish, and without the grain variation like the other parts. I think I picked the wrong side of the log to carve...

There's also some water damage at the bottom end of the log. Next time I'll cut a couple of inches off both ends before I start carving. Neither one of these areas want to accept the stain like the rest of the log.

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Now, wood is wood, and sometimes has a mind of its own. I could live with it, and it would still look pretty cool the way it is. Live & learn. I could also try to spot stain these areas with a darker color to try to make the color more uniform. Anyone ever try this before?

My thoughts are: Use a darker color just on the spots taking care that it doesn't bleed over, apply enough coats to make the light spots closer to the color of the rest. Then, mix some of the darker stain with the lighter "Natural" stain for a diluted mixture. Then put a coat of the diluted mix over the whole thing to make it all blend.

I'm holding off on varnishing till I get a few of your opinions, just in case I decide to try this.

What do you think?