Anybody have any experience with staining hemlock? From reading online, it appears that its a little tough to get the stain consistent. I had this mantel cut out of a beam taken from a 180+ year old barn in Pennsylvania. I was planning on staining it the same color as our floors.



[This message has been edited by txaggie02 (edited 8/13/2013 3:03p).]

leave it natural and epoxy it.

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leave it natural and epoxy it

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X2

Paging the resident wood-working baller, agrams.

where'd you get that thing?

Read his post and find out

I would go with a natural look also but since you didn't ask for opinions. As a general rule you will get better more consistent color if you use a dye by itself or in combination with stain. I don't know much about hemlock however. The dye will penetrate the wood and color the wood fibers while most stains rely on the pigment to sit on the surface. The darker the stain the more pigment which can lead to the blotchy look.

I may just have to go with the natural look and epoxy coating. That did cross my mind, but the wife and I both thought it would look better with a darker stain to match the wood floors. Our fireplace is almost complete. The guys were finishing up this morning by adding some better bracing for the mantel (in lieu of the mouse trap design shown in the picture) and adding the surround stone.

Here is an article in the Erie Times newspaper from April 2007 when the barn was being tore down....







And a couple pics of the Sterrett barn where our mantel came from......







[This message has been edited by txaggie02 (edited 8/13/2013 2:58p).]

that is a monstrous freaking barn.

If you epoxy and want it darker, I would buy some transtint dye and mix that in with the epoxy, you can adjust the concentration and work towards a rough color tone of what you want. Though for use inside, epoxy will be expensive and probably overkill, but done right, it would fill the cracks and give you a smooth surface. I would consider maybe just spraying it down with some shellac for a buildup coat, then wipe on/spray on a topcoat. With all of those cracks through, a brushon will be prone to having the finish build up and run. A spray on finish would give you a better chance of an even, smooth finish. If you wanted to really level things out, look for a high solids spray on finish, this will level more quickly and give you a thicker coat(though not fill the cracks). That is unless you want a raw look and feel to the wood, then a light wipe/brush on would work.

[This message has been edited by agrams (edited 8/13/2013 2:34p).]

I work with epoxy all the time. I have a hard time understanding what you are trying to do with it especially if you are going to treat the rounded front edge.

Several years back, I bought another mantel for our home in North Dallas that was from a 150+ year old barn in Ohio. However the woodshop that I bought it from stained and finished it themselves. We got a ton of compliments on it, so I was thinking about doing something similar with this new mantel. This is it....

Sun is right in regards to epoxy, and as I said before, I think it would be overkill (unless when you are talking about epoxy you aren't talking about a 2 part mix, but rather something else). I would just smooth the surfaces to knock off any loose wood or dirt, stain to your preferred tone, and doing several coats of a wipe on finish/varnish.

Looking at that picture, I would not guess your original mantle was an epoxy finish.

I'm pretty much scared sh+&less that I'm going to screw this up. I don't know a damn thing about wood other than what's tucked inside my zipper. I wanted to stain the mantel prior to installing it, but unfortunately the timing was a little off and my mason needed to get it installed so he can move onto anothe project he has lined up. I did manage to get the back piece of the beam that they sliced off so I guess I can use that for practice.

The test pieces will help. Do lots of test samples. Most wipe on stains and oil varnishes are pretty fool proof though, so don't worry too much about your risk of messing it up with those.

I guess I should just go pick up several small cans of different colors of Minwax at Home Depot and try them out?