Stain is a special tinting composition that is used to treat wood, as well as fiberboard, chipboard and other similar materials. With its help, you can create the desired shade, as well as additionally protect the natural array from pests, premature destruction. There are many such compositions on the market. If you wish, you can make wood stain with your own hands. Interesting recipes and expert recommendations will be discussed below.
Varieties
Before considering how to make a tinting composition for wood materials with your own hands, you need to consider the varieties that are most actively used today in the course of such work. All stains are divided into types according to the type of their base. They can be:
- water;
- alcohol;
- oil;
- acrylic;
- wax.
Each of the listed materials has a certain set of characteristics. So, one of the most common varieties are water stains for wood. It is easy to make such a composition with your own hands. To do this, purchase a dry powder and dilute it in water. You can also buy a ready-to-use liquid formulation.
Water wood stains are safe for humans and the environment. With your own hands, such compositions can be prepared in a matter of seconds. Dry powder dissolves quickly in water. The stain is suitable for both outdoor and indoor use. At the same time, the palette of shades is diverse. It can be a tone from light gray to dark red.
The disadvantage of aqueous varieties of stains is their limited scope. For resinous rocks, such impregnation is not suitable. Otherwise, ugly spots appear on the surface of the wood.
Also, when stained with aqueous compounds, one can observe how the fibers of a natural material rise. This allows you to emphasize the texture, but at the same time the wood will become more susceptible to moisture.
Alcohol, oil base
How to make wood stain with your own hands? First you need to determine what effect is planned to be achieved when using a stain (the so-called stain). If you need to ensure that the impregnation dries quickly, it is best to use alcohol varieties for these purposes. They are also sold inpowdered or ready-made.
The coloring composition in this case penetrates deep into the structure of the array. Literally in half an hour the stain dries up. To apply such a wood stain with your own hands, an airbrush is used. If you use a brush, ugly spots and stains may appear. This is due to the quick drying of the alcohol.
Wood after such treatment becomes unaffected by moisture, as well as ultraviolet radiation. The disadvantage is a strong smell and the need to use a spray gun.
Also, oil stain is used during finishing work. It is quite easy to apply it with your own hands. In this case, you can paint the wood in almost any color. There are two types of oil stains:
- pigmented - creates a uniform shade, hides the structure of the material;
- impregnating - paints the array from the inside, emphasizing the natural texture.
Oil-based stain dries not as fast as alcohol varieties. But this property makes it easy to use. You can apply this tool on the surface with a regular brush. In this case, the layer will be uniform, and the fibers will not rise. The film on the surface is not formed, which allows the wood to breathe. This circumstance significantly extends its service life. To prepare such a stain, you need white spirit. A thick viscous base is diluted with this solvent.
Wax and acrylic stains
Another variety is waxwood stain. It is quite easy to apply it with your own hands. At the same time, the presented variety is often used in the restoration of old wooden surfaces. If there are spots on the coating, differences in shades that have appeared over time, the wax composition will completely equalize them. However, the differences in shades should be small. Otherwise, they will still be visible.
Wax stain creates a protective film on the surface of the material that will repel moisture. Therefore, such compositions are used even in wet rooms. Also, when finishing or restoring the floor, it is desirable to use wax-based stains. If water accidentally spills onto the surface during cleaning, it will not saturate the structure of the finish.
But it is worth remembering that the wax film is subject to mechanical stress. Therefore, it is also covered on top with a layer of varnish. Such a tandem will ensure the durability of the shade, preventing moisture, scratches, and other adverse effects from damaging the wood surface.
Acrylic varieties of stains are distinguished by a rich color palette. For example, you can choose a shade from a rich burgundy black to a light tone. Natural brown, honey, red and gray wood stains are especially popular in interior design. It is easy to apply such a composition with your own hands. The texture of the natural array is emphasized. Acrylic and wax formulations are also called rustic.
Herbal Ingredients
It is quite possible to make a stain with your own hands. Cooking recipes are varied. They may include herbal ingredients. Plants create a variety of shades:
- Reddish orange. This shade is obtained by using onion peel. This composition is suitable for light wood species. A strong decoction is brewed from the husk. Water stain is applied with a brush in its pure form or added to aqueous brown shades.
- Reddish. This shade is obtained by using a decoction of larch bark. Most often it is used to process birch.
- Brown. A decoction is made from walnut shells. The shell should rot a little, and then it is dried under a canopy. The material is collected and crushed to a powder state in a mortar. It is added to boiling water and insisted, filtered and a pinch of soda is added. A gray tint will be obtained if, after applying such a stain, cover the surface of the wood with acetic acid.
- Black wood stain. Do-it-yourself composition is created from oak or alder bark.
- Brown honey. The shade is obtained from a decoction of willow and oak bark, as well as alder catkins and walnut shells. All ingredients are crushed, added to cold water. A teaspoon of soda is also poured here. It is necessary to boil a little composition on low heat. The composition is cooled, filtered.
- Yellow. For light wood, a stain is prepared from buckthorn fruits (unripe). To make the shade richer, alum is added to the broth.
- Brown. apple bark,used for decoction, gives a rich brown tint.
Tea, coffee, vinegar, potassium permanganate
You can make natural stains for wood with your own hands from tea or coffee, as well as vinegar.
There is theanine in tea, which perfectly tones light woods. To make the shade darker, you need a strong tea leaves. For these purposes, black tea is suitable. The more concentrated the brew, the darker the shade will be.
Coffee is also used for tinting wood. To prepare the product, you need to grind the coffee beans, and then add a little soda to them. You can simply brew a strong drink and then use it as a stain.
Vinegar can be used to make a special composition. To do this, you need to prepare metal parts, for example, nails. They are degreased and then poured with vinegar. The container is left for several days in a dark place. The longer the vinegar sits, the richer the shade will turn out. But the maximum duration of this process is a week.
This composition has a very pungent odor, so you need to process wood on the street. With this recipe, you can get a special stain color for wood. Do-it-yourself stain, when applied, imitates ebony wood. If the wood was originally a dark shade, for example, after staining with strong tea, then after such a composition it will become jet black.
Shades from cherry to dark brown are obtained using potassium permanganate. To do this, it is taken in an amount of 50 g and dissolved in a liter of water. Immediately after preparationthe solution is applied with a brush to the wood. After 5 minutes, rub it with a damp cloth. If you repeat the procedure again, the shade will be darker and richer. If you create a 3.5% solution of potassium permanganate and process birch veneer with it, you get a golden brown tint. After applying potassium permanganate, the wood is varnished with a special composition. Otherwise, this shade will fade over time.
Chemical compositions
Considering how to make wood stain with your own hands, you can find a few more recipes. Some woods are high in theanine, such as oak or walnut. If such wood is treated with slaked lime, a brown tint will be obtained. At the same time, the brown tone of the walnut will have greenish notes.
If the wood is light, you can give it a noble shade with the help of a barberry root. A decoction is made from it, to which 2% alum is added. The liquid is boiled, cooled and filtered. You can also make wood stain with your own hands from iodine. To do this, add a little of this agent to the broth. This will add depth, saturation to the brown hue.
If you use poplar shoots instead of barberry root, the color will be richer. To do this, prepare 150 g of poplar branches. They are filled with water, alum is added and boiled for an hour. The filtered composition must be defended in glassware for 7 days. Only after that the composition is ready for use. If this remedy is mixed with a decoction of oak bark, then the shade of the wood will bebrownish-greenish.
If you want to create a light emerald hue, add 50 g of verdigris to the vinegar. The agent is boiled for 10-15 minutes. After filtering the composition, they treat the surface. If the product is planed, it is better to soak it in a warm solution until the desired shade is obtained.
From the fruits of privet you can make a stain that will give the wood a black color. To do this, the juice of the fruits of the plant is mixed with various acids. If you add water to it, the shade will be blue.
Grey shade
Creating wood stain with your own hands, you can get different shades. It could be grey, for example. You can even make a silver tint. To prepare a solution for surface treatment, water and vinegar are mixed in equal proportions. Rusty nails or other metal products are added here. The solution is infused for some time without nails, and then the rusty metal is added to the liquid.
To make the gray color more saturated, ammonia is used, diluted with water. Work is carried out outdoors. Do not allow this product to come into contact with the skin. It is not recommended to inhale ammonia vapors, so you need to work carefully. You need to act quickly, as stain in such conditions loses its properties in a short time.
When the wood is painted in the desired shade, the solution is washed off with water. To process a small product, a workpiece and an open jar of ammonia are lowered into a closed container. After a few hours, the wood product is removed fromcontainers.
Whitening
Do-it-yourself wood stain can also lighten the material. Bleaching allows you to prepare the material before painting. So the tone of the coating will look more expressive.
It is worth considering that when carrying out such a procedure, some tree species acquire an original color. So, for example, a walnut becomes a pale pink color, an apple tree becomes ivory.
Birch becomes greenish after applying bleaching stain. For this, a solution of oxalic acid is used. Ash, oak simply brighten without changing their color. If you treat the Anatolian nut with hydrogen peroxide, the concentration of which will be at least 15%, the shade will become golden.
Preparation of bleaching stain from oxalic acid
Different solutions are used to bleach wood. Their speed of impact on the material can vary significantly.
One of the commonly used for these purposes is a solution prepared from oxalic acid. To do this, prepare 100 g of boiled water. From 1.5 to 6 g of acid is dissolved in it. Best used on light woods such as lime, birch, poplar, maple, etc.
If the array was dark, when processed with such a solution, ugly stains, gray spots may appear. In other cases, the result will be spectacular. To deresin the surface and lift the pile, after treatment with a solution of oxalic acidthe array is moistened with a different composition. It is prepared from 100 g of boiling water, 3 g of soda ash and 15 g of bleach.
Using hydrogen peroxide
Requires a 25% hydrogen peroxide solution to work. This method is used for most types of wood. The only exceptions are oak, lemon tree, rosewood.
The advantage of this technique is the fact that the wood does not need to be washed after treatment. But such a solution will be effective only for finely porous materials. If there are a lot of tannins in the structure, clarification is very difficult. To facilitate this process, the surface is first treated with a 10% ammonia solution.
