Stain/Oil/Varnvish order?

cwfrench

Enthusiastic about Wooden Canoes
Stain or Linseed oil first? The interior of my Old Town is just about ready to treat. I am replacing six ribs that are already out and will be putting the new ones in. The others have been sanded pretty much down and I would like to recreate much of the patina it had. I am going to experiment using the discarded ribs to find a suitable color combination and am looking to start with Minwax Early American
 
You would want to actually test your staining on a fresh piece of cedar that is the same as your new ribs are made of. If you use an old rib to experiment on that has patina.. the new rib with that same stain will look different. Once you have the stain close to what you think looks right on the new wood test piece, finish it with varnish to see the finale tone as the varnish will further alter it. This will give you a better idea of what the newly installed rib wiil look like. I would in this order stain-oil -varnish. Hope this helps, Bill
 
As you are using an oil based stain there is no need for more oil. I would go stain then varnish. Using more oil may lighten your stain as you wipe on the oil.
 
When ever possible ALWAYS instal one coat of varnish to the prepared interior BEFORE installing any new wood. Once the new wood is installed it can then be easily stained to the original interior. Any excess stain on the original wood is easily wiped off the sealed varnished original wood. 3 or 4 more coats of varnish to all the new and old wood and it will be almost impossible to tell which is which. Don't forget to stain the new rib tips too.
 
Another option: you can take the old rib to Sherwin/Williams and they can match for you. I recently had perfect result on a kitchen cabinet. I guess cedar would be the same?
 
Well yesterday I was at the shop painting hot linseed oil onto the new ribs in prep for steaming on Wed. We were playing with different stains on some of the old ribs. While waiting for the something else, I laid some hot linseed on one of the sanded old ribs. It turned very dark right off so I guess I do not have to worry about staining them. I will then plan on finding some stain mix that will work on the six new ribs. It is an old canoe shop in the village and he has many cans of old old stains sitting around. It will give us something to do. He had advised to linseed them prior to steaming so that kind of answered my question. I will try to post some pics of the resto soon. Thanks for all the help.
 
The linseed oil should be applied after the ribs are steamed and bent in place. I would think that steaming would steam the oil from the cedar. Also I would only apply oil after all sanding is complete as the even what seems to be dry oil on the wood will quickly gumm up your sand paper. Bill
 
Since the linseen oil will tend too seal the wood I think this will cause problems when you try to stain the new wood to match the old.
 
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