Staining. Continued.

I guess that something in the back of my mind told me that one step staining sounded too easy. So I gave it a thought.

After inspecting the stained shells, I noticed that they lost the smoothness of the 180 grit sanding. The fibers raised back when applying stain. Makes sense, it's basically water. Given the wood surface will get some sealer coats before poly - and that sealer won't work on a grainy surface - I have to get back to a smooth finish.

Hard to see on the picture, but it's not smooth at all

So I put the test shell back on the working rack to try something.

First of all, I sanded the stained surface with 240 grit. Seems to work, it does make the stain fade slightly, but it looks alright. The wood is now smooth again.

I cleaned the sanding dust using naphta since it doesn't dissolve stain (like water would).

I then applied a light coat of stain, using the sponge, in the direction of the grain, trying to blend properly.

Before that last buffing, I also did some faux figuring job, read it under the related article.

When done, I buffed the surface with a fine scotchbrite pad. The finish is now smooth, perfect for applying sealer.

Again, hard to guess on the picture, but way smoother

It actually had little impact on the stain tone, I have the feeling it makes it a little more even, but it's very subtle.

 Underneath the finished sample. The overall tone is the same, but more even.

On the 13" tom-tom and on the 16" floortom, buffing with scotchbrite feels enough. On the bassdrum though, the outside ply is grainier, the coarser spots must be sanded carefully - otherwise the thin layer of stained wood will be damaged - using 400 grit.

Here's a good idea of what the stained wood figuring looks like.

Things I learned from this work:

• Sponge works fine. At 8 cents a piece.
• I mixed way too much stain. I used something like 100 ml for 2 square meters. Literature on the internet says 150 ml per square meter, which is totally wrong, unless you soak it completely.
• I get whiter spots where I applied the woodpaste made with more - too much - binder. My bad.
• CLOU stain is very controllable. I had stain dripping but I managed to blend it afterwards by rubbing the sponge.
• No need to fill the mounting holes since the sponge method refrains you from using too much stain