How to Choose a Wood Stain

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm James, with JNC Home Repair. Today, I'm going to show you how to choose a wood stain. First thing you want to know about choosing stains, is whether you want a water based stain, whether you want an oil based stain, or you want a one step stain that has the clear coat and the stain mixed together. It's all just a one simple step process. The reason you may want to use a water based stain, it's quick drying. It's going to dry within about an hour, versus an oil based stain, where it's going to take at least eight hours to twenty four hours, for it to dry. The oil base is actually going to sink in, and soak into the wood, a lot better than a water based stain will, but if you're like kind of in a hurry. You're trying to get something done real quick. You may want to choose a water based stain. The colors are a lot more limited as far as an oil based stain, but they're both very good products. I've refinished numerous things with them, and both of them have worked excellent, so there's another product they have on the market. This is called PolyShades. It's stain and polyurethane in one step, and the good thing about this stuff right here, is you don't actually have to sand down the wood. As long as the color that you're going with is darker than what you have on your existing wood now, you can use this stain. You can just basically brush it on, and that's it. You brush it on in one step. It dries, and you've got a clear coat and a stain, all in one step. With these oil based and water based stains, you're actually going to have to sand down, if there's a varnish or some kind of clear coat, polyurethane, something like that. You're actually going to have to get that stuff off of there, for the wood to actually accept the stain, and that's a good way to go ahead and use strippers and liquid deglossers also. You can use that stuff to actually get the stuff off of the wood, because it won't take it without it, so that's a couple of things that you need to consider, when you're choosing a wood stain."