I'm doing some finishing work on my first pipe that isn't just 'dark stain sanded down to contrast on natural briar'. I'm trying to get a uniform mahogany color; the weird grain on my cheap block is throwing me off a bit since it has big blank spots and in other places it had really dark, thick grain splotches. But the problem is the rim. When I buff the pipe the stain seems to be holding up sorta well, except I get spots on the rim of the bowl where the stain comes off almost completely. They occur on the sides right where the rim top meets the bowl sides and the rim top itself seems to have a hard time holding color. I was going to use a cotton swab to apply some little touch-ups of stain to the bare spots; should I sand the spots with 600 grit or just go right over the buffing? Or something entirely different? Thanks again all.
Tim
Touch-up staining
Re: Touch-up staining
That's funny.... never happens to me.
Just dabbing with a q-tip and wiping up any excess real quick seems to work on things like edges, but if you've got a spot on the pipe that just isn't coloring like the rest then you can either try to get it to accept more stain, and take it back to say, 320 and restain it, or you can try to sort of wash the surface with color - stain and alcohol on a rag, say, and then after that you need to seal it on there somehow and that's the tricky part. IF you just go to the buffer, you'll take it right off, and if you wax over that, your customer will get brown fingers. A little thin shellac works, or even tinting up a bit of shellac with your stain.
What's your staining procedure? I'd like to see the pipe, but it almost sounds like maybe your sanding was not super uniform??
Just dabbing with a q-tip and wiping up any excess real quick seems to work on things like edges, but if you've got a spot on the pipe that just isn't coloring like the rest then you can either try to get it to accept more stain, and take it back to say, 320 and restain it, or you can try to sort of wash the surface with color - stain and alcohol on a rag, say, and then after that you need to seal it on there somehow and that's the tricky part. IF you just go to the buffer, you'll take it right off, and if you wax over that, your customer will get brown fingers. A little thin shellac works, or even tinting up a bit of shellac with your stain.
What's your staining procedure? I'd like to see the pipe, but it almost sounds like maybe your sanding was not super uniform??
ALL YOUR PIPE ARE BELONG TO US!
Re: Touch-up staining
I'll post it as soon as I can, but I'm pretty sure my sanding is AWESOME.Sasquatch wrote:That's funny.... never happens to me.
Just dabbing with a q-tip and wiping up any excess real quick seems to work on things like edges, but if you've got a spot on the pipe that just isn't coloring like the rest then you can either try to get it to accept more stain, and take it back to say, 320 and restain it, or you can try to sort of wash the surface with color - stain and alcohol on a rag, say, and then after that you need to seal it on there somehow and that's the tricky part. IF you just go to the buffer, you'll take it right off, and if you wax over that, your customer will get brown fingers. A little thin shellac works, or even tinting up a bit of shellac with your stain.
What's your staining procedure? I'd like to see the pipe, but it almost sounds like maybe your sanding was not super uniform??
Re: Touch-up staining
Here's a couple of pics; the first one shows the rim, the second shows the light spot in the middle of the bowl. What you can't really make out in the second is just to the left and a bit above the light spot is an area of really dense, hairlike dark grain. The light spot has almost no grain pattern to it. I was just curious if that's what is causing it....
