/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Well I've been practicing staining all day. I sanded a piece of 2x4 with 3 different grades of sandpaper and then applied wood conditioner. Waited 15 and applied the stain on 1-5. Waited an hour and did 2-5. Waited another hour and did 3-5. Waited another hour... seemed tacky still. Waited an hour... applied stain to 4 and 5. Waited about 1.5 hours and did 5. Waited another hour or so andd applied polyurethane top coat. Still waiting for that to dry, has about 2.5 hours to go.
As you can tell from this pic, I did fuck up. The poly actually moved the stain on 3-5. Went to the manufacturer's website, they recommend waiting at least 2 hours between coats of stain. Kind of sucks, the can said otherwise. But this is just a practice piece so it is ok.
Once the poly is dry, I will do a light sand with 220 sandpaper, apply a 2nd coat of poly, and let it dry until tomorrow around noon probably. But I have a 2nd piece of 2x4 that I am going to do tonight/tomorrow and will wait at least 2 hours between coats.
In this pic you will see 6 stained parts. The first very light one is just wood conditioner, but when I used the rag with the poly on it, I went from 1 through 5 so there was quite a bit of stain on the rag.
Not sure I really like the color, will have to wait and see what the 2nd piece looks like tomorrow. Ill probably be done with it sometime in the late evening.
edit: better pic