STAIN (OIL BASED/SOLVENT) VERSUS PAINT (WATER BASED) USED AS A COLOUR TO WIPE ON
Now I’ll add even more confusion to add to YOUR CHOICE OF COLOUR/FINISH and different wood species
CUSTOMER PROVIDED A SAMPLE OF A light coat of (bENJAMIN MOORE) paint on a flat piece of birch
My response ….
You have about four different lighting situations on that one piece of wood.
In your bedroom set, the birch is not flat …. It’s all rounded over as it’s frame pieces and trim pieces … So light reflects off of it differently .
All of the rest of the wood in your bedroom set, i.e.… The tops, the sides, the centre part flat sections of the drawers and the centre flat sections of the headboard and footboard are all cherry wood.
Cherry wood Has a more fibrous texture to it whereas birch is a denser texture wood… Birch has a tighter texture, making it a smoother wood so it takes product whether it’s paint or stain differently than Cherrywood does.
Lighting…. sunlight coming through a window or a lamp, etc. affects how colour is ‘see’ … so if you had a rounded piece of wood right beside a flat piece of wood, and you put it in front of a window, both areas of that piece of wood are going to look like a completely different color.
As you can see in your sample , where the shadow is from you holding the camera, it is blocking the light completely and the colour of north sea looks very, very dark and flat, no detail… On the right Where it’s shining onto the sample in the top right side, you’re seeing the wood’s texture ( which is wood grain’s high spots and low spots).
In the bottom right you’re seeing somewhat through the light coat of blue paint and some of the wood’s grain is visible.
There is a difference between seeing the wood’s grain and seeing the wood’s texture because of the grain.
.Seeing the texture of the grain is as a result of light refraction off of ridges between the raised and lowered sections of the woods
To further confuse things… What we’re working with for (BM# ____) is oil based stain… Not paint in (BM#____) and the other colour (BM#____)
Paint just sits on top of the wood grain whereas oil based stain goes into the fibres of the wood… Now the wood takes the colour differently, all depending on whether it’s it’s grain part of the wood or the non-grainy part of the wood(I.e. The lighter areas of the species of wood between the wood grain)
As I mentioned yesterday if you don’t want Oil based stain to go seeping into the fibres of the wood, you pre-seal all the wood surfaces… But that’s a redundant process if you’re actually going to use paint on top of wood, you don’t need to seal it because paint doesn’t seep into the fibres of the wood… It just sits on top
Both oil base stain and paint can be diluted in colour strength.
At the final stage of the process …. whether it’s been oil based stained or painted, it still needs a final clear coat of lacquer to protect everything underneath and “finish“ the piece
If what you’re looking for, is a solid colour on the wood…then that would be using paint sprayed on and then go over top with a clear coat of lacquer, but the problem is by going over top with a clear coat of lacquer to protect it you are levelling out the ridges between the grain (because the lacquer fills in the spaces between the grain and the flat areas of the wood and makes that smooth furniture type finish) …but then the flat areas of the wood are filled in and light reflects differently off of it because it’s now smoother it’s filled in the ridges.
If you want just to spray on paint and leave it as is and not put on the final coat of lacquer we can do that, but I’d be very worried about it showing every time you/something rubbed up against it or opened a drawer and your ring scratches it. It’s going to scratch so easily.
At the end of my email, I said to her “I am now going to save a copy of this email because I’ve now written a chapter about how different species of wood takes different types of stains versus paint”.
