Summary: Sand between coats to get rid of raised wood grain. Learn how to stain wood like a professional in this free woodworking and wood project series from an expert carpenter.
Steve Anthony has been a professional photographer since 1989. He is based in both New York City and Miami. As a photographer who specializes in theatrical head shots, Anthony also...read more
"In this clip we're going to talk about how to deal with raised grain. We just talked about what raised grain is when staining wood, now we'll talk about how to deal with it. The best way to deal with raised grain is to not have it happen at all. That's why I mentioned the conditioning of the wood. But if you didn't condition the wood, and sometimes you don't need to depending on the grain structure of the wood. It's just a simple as putting down a coat of stain, sanding it, very lightly with say a 400 grit sand paper and giving it another coat of stain. You may have to repeat this process several times in order to get the grain to lay down without lifting when you put liquid on it. Another way if you don't mind taking a chance of sanding through your stain is you can simply apply a coat of clear material on top of your stain and then sand that. They say that it does run the risk that if you sand too much you'll actually sand through the stain and reveal some of the light wood underneath. So I wouldn't recommend that if you're not real confident in what you're doing. So I would say, build up your stain and lightly sand with 400 grit sandpaper and then when that process is finished, you put a nice clear coat on it. "
eHow Article: Smoothing Raised Wood Grain