Turn, turn, turn... part three

Matching a finish is always difficult, especially if the wood is stained, so I usually grab some different cans of stain and make a few samples. In this case, I tried some Watco Walnut, a Minwax Gel in Mahogany, Minwax Walnut, and to round out the batch, a Zarr stain in walnut.


After staining some scrap wood that had left over from making the base, I decided these two were the closest match. You always want to stain wood from the piece you've made, so that you'll get an accurate color match. I thought that was a given, but when I mentioned it to someone recently, they said they'd never thought of doing that.

You can see from this picture that the mahogany isn't dark enough. But the walnut is a little too dark, and needs more red tones.


So I mixed up a little of both in a cup, and tried it on another piece of scrap. It was perfect.


The stain goes on very evenly; if I have to stain wood, Minwax products are usually the ones I use.


The color match is nearly perfect.


The only real difference between the two sections of the legs is the sheen. The original section has a nice satin sheen, while the new legs, which are just raw wood, need some protection.

To bring some sheen to the wood, I used Mixwax Wipe-on Poly over the stain. We've been having a cold front here, so it is chilly in my shop. That makes the drying time very slow.

Here is the sheen (finally!) building up on the wood.

In the picture below, I have marked the area with the red line to show the new section of the leg. I think it turned out to be an pretty good match, don't you?


And here is the final piece, finished and awaiting pick-up.


I'm going to say something I never thought I would hear myself saying, but after the last couple of repair jobs I have completed, I am actually starting to enjoy repairing old furniture. It gives me a chance to work with some different woods, study new construction details, and has given me an appreciation of woodworking that took place long ago.

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