Wood Conditioner Before Polyurethane

For open grain woods like oak ash or walnut you can apply a wood grain filler before the polyurethane to create an ultra smooth finished surface. The label on my can of minwax wood conditioner instructs me to apply the stain within two hours well before the wood conditioner has cured. Apply stain within two hours of application of pre stain wood conditioner.
wood conditioner before polyurethane

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Be sure to test the stain on an inconspicuous spot on the project before starting.

Wood conditioner before polyurethane. Pour the products into a glass jar and gently stir the mixture with a flat stir stick. Instead you can make your own pre stain wood conditioner by thinning a solvent based finish. Wood conditioner is used to partially seal the grain of porous wood. Should i use a wood conditioner on my maple wood before applying tung oil finish or polyurethane.

I have tried a bit of both on a test piece of wood and so far i have not noticed any blotching or other issues. While some companies manufacture wood conditioner with a large concentration of solvents this may be too complicated to mix yourself. Finally using a pre stain wood conditioner will likely lighten the color of your stain to some degree since the role of the conditioner is to slightly hinder the absorption of the stain. The whole purpose of tung oil is to soak into the wood not just be a surface layer finish.

Before staining apply minwax pre stain wood conditioner on clean raw wood using a brush or cloth. But they are smaller pieces of wood. As with all wood finishes good results depend on smooth clean wood surfaces but this goes double with clear finishes such as polyurethane. Wipe off the excess.

Sand your wood with at least 220 grit sandpaper. Allow to penetrate for 5 to 15 minutes then remove any excess with clean dry cloth. On page 109 of the first edition of your book understanding wood finishing rodale press you say allow the solvent to soak in. If you use anything before tung oil that creates any kind of barrier or seals the wood in any way youve defeated the benefit of tung oil.

I am getting to the end stages of building a desk out of maple. To seal the wood before top coating thin your oil based polyurethane to one part mineral spirits and two parts polyurethane first gently stir the contents in the can.