About to stain my stand/canopy

[llpoolej]

and have searched here, read about using marine grade finish ect;

My questions are:

Does the stain I use have to be marine grade? Or is is ok to just pick a quality and pretty one from Lowes/Home Depot?

The spar varnish that is spoke about is the Rustoleum marine coatings spar varnish, correct??

After staining, I should sand with a fine sandpaper or steel wool, which is superior? I also sand inbetween top coats correct??

The stand/hood are made of 3/4in oak 7ply plywood. The cabinets are solid oak. I would like to stain it cherry, make it look as close to cherry wood as possible.

Could you give me some tips on how to best attain a really well finished stand? One that looks like fine furniture??

[Bass Master]

Yes, Lowes/HD stain will be fine. Just as important as sanding is getting all of the dust off of your project, if not you will have grit in the finish. Use tackcloth/cheesecloth and a shop-vac. Fine sandpaper or steelewool will work fine in between coats.

[Trackz]

While there's little doubt the marine grade stuff would make the finish last longer, I chose to just use the regular stuff. I don't regularly get large amounts of water on it, plus I wanted it to be the same inside/out and there was more of a selection of the regular stain.

Yes you need to sand inbetween coats. You'll be ok with either steel wool or fine paper. Remember, don't kill it. All you are doing is roughing it so the next coat will stick and hold better.

You'll want to keep staining until you get the look you want. Typically, every coat will make the color a little darker and deeper. Highly recommend (almost mandatory) you get a scrap of the same wood and stain it until it looks like you want. It will lessen the chances of messing up the real deal, plus let you know how much work will be involved.

After you get it stained just right, just apply one or two coats of poly to it to give it that shine. :)

Hope this helps.

[marm64]

I would be verry careful about sanding inbetween coats with the thicknes of the plywood veneer. I lightly sand before I stain and then use a wipe on stain and I normally use a latex based poly and use a brown paper bag crumpled into a ball to light finish the coating.

[Gem Tang Rider]

llpoolej
Oil based stains will give you a good even finish, don't sand the stained surface. Water base stains can be a little trickier to get even. Is all the wood oak that will be exposed? If so, you will not have to use a sealer prior to staining. I like a Minwax oil based poly for the first few coats, brushed on, & lightly sanded between coats. Then for the final coats I use a Minwax oil based wipe on poly.

[llpoolej]

The entire thing is made of oak. I want that sweet cherry finish, to go with the rest of the room.

I don't know the reasonings why to do or not to do things. Why do you not have to seal oak?? I have read that minwax poly's are too soft and will flake off.

I am picking it up tomorrow, so, the finishing will be next!

[Trackz]

Sealer helps when staining softer woods (actually, soft woods with some hard spots). If you don't, it's sometimes tough to make the stain look 'even' because the soft spots soak it in more than the harder spots, or the soft spots soak in different amounts, etc.

Oak is pretty consistent throughout and usually gives a nice even stain.

[Gem Tang Rider]

Trakz is correct about sealing soft woods like pine or fir. The only time I would ever want to put a sealer on oak would be if there was some dry rot in the wood that looked really cool. But dry rot usually affects the strength of the wood & would not be a good for a tank stand.
Never heard of minwax poly being soft. The water based polys, I believe are tougher, but I dont care for the look.

[Terry.cx]

A little backround...I've gone through gallons of marine varnish on my boat and others, so I have a pretty good understanding of this.
Make sure the wood is ready to varnish with any stain dry and sanding complete. Vacuum and tack rag all wood. Thin your varnish 50% with the recomended thiner and apply the first coat. when dry, sand lightly with 220 grit paper. Thin the next coat by 25 % and sand again when dry. You're going to sand with 220 in between all coats. Now start appling the varnish full strength. The more coats the better, but for this application you shouldn't need more than 3. Make sure all coats are absolutely dry before sanding and make sure you get all sanding dust off before the next coat. As a preventative measure keep a small bottle and brush in the stand to touch up scratches. If water gets into a scratch it will lift the varnish and look nasty. Have fun.

[Hobster]

For sanding between coats, try some for 3M products like their foam sanding blocks or pads (like kitchen scrub pads) they don't rip to shreds and leave much less dust and residue to clean off, They come it different grits.