Over the year's I've been experimenting with different stains and ways to finish my furniture. I've been searching for just the right shade and just the right look.
I think I finally found it!
I started using ZAR Cherry, which looked good at first but wasn't quite brown enough. It has too much red/orange for my taste.
So I started mixing various stains together and came up with this recipe:
4 parts Minwax Red Oak
2 parts Minwax Colonial Maple
2 parts Minwax Golden Oak
1 part Minwax Red Mahogany
I usually start with 2oz of Red Mahogany which gives me a total of 18oz. I use one of those spaghetti sauce jars that have ounces marked on them. The hardest part is pouring the stain out of the cans without making too much of mess :)
For a top coat, I've been using Minwax poly. thinned.
Originally I would just wipe on the stain and then wipe on the poly. The problem was that trying to keep the amount consistent was tough, the second coat would sometime dissolve the first coat depending on how much I used or how hard I wiped.
My latest method involves spraying the finish on using an airbrush. This gave me a nice even coat of stain (I only used one coat). And spraying on the poly worked even better. It doesn't dissolve the stain and change the color. The 8 drawer chest was the first time I used this technique and it turned out really nice.
So that's it! My secrets to Mission Style furniture finishing.