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I am building a dining table out of of cracked reclaimed wood. I’ve mistakenly filled in the cracks with epoxy first and am now looking to stain the wood. Obviously, a normal stain won’t adhere to the epoxy. Would a gel stain work (since it doesn’t have to permeate the wood, but rather sits on top of the surface)? Or if a gel stain won’t work, is it possible to fix this in some other way? Do I have to sand through the epoxy to re-expose the wood?

erikejan
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  • "I’ve mistakenly filled in the cracks with epoxy first and am now looking to stain the wood." This is actually the correct order to do things in :-) – Graphus Jan 05 '22 at 14:03
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    We actually have an existing Q&A that covers this, In which order should I glue, stain and apply epoxy resin? – Graphus Jan 05 '22 at 14:04
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  • @Graphus Though related, I wouldn’t say this is a duplicate. I’m asking what types of stains will adhere to an epoxy surface. – erikejan Jan 05 '22 at 19:02
  • The previous Q&A applies here. You always epoxy first because you can't get epoxy fills to be flush during the pour — so you slightly overfill (so there's a meniscus of epoxy proud of the surface) which then needs planing/scraping/sanding. Using any type of conventional stains this will inevitably expose bare wood somewhere because stain penetration is surprisingly shallow. With "gel stain" as you already know it sits on surface (because it is thickened coloured varnish, not stain in the conventional sense) it will of course similarly be removed by any amount of work to flush the epoxy. HTH – Graphus Jan 06 '22 at 17:20

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Well you are right, epoxy won't take a stain, and a gel stain does not need to be 'absorbed' so has a chance. Paint is even easier and more consistent.

I am wondering more what look you are going for here. You talk of filing in cracks in the wood with epoxy but not being able to stain the wood. I'm trying to envision what the current project looks like now if you have so much epoxy that you need to sand it down to apply stain? I would think you would already sand it to make the top smooth and level. Where you putting enough on to make an epoxy top? in that case the epoxy would be the 'finish' and any wood prep should have been done before that.

Do you need a stain? I myself tend to like unstained wood the vast majority of the time and the only reason to stain anything is to change color or make it more even across the whole piece. Seems to me that if you made something with cracks big enough to need epoxy to fill them in, it sounds like a more rough piece and stain seems pointless.

Now if what you really want is a finish and think you need to stain it for a finish, that is a completely different issue. While some finishes have stains and some stains have some finish (ie gel stains) they are different processes with different end goals and different answers.

bowlturner
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  • ”I'm trying to envision what the current project looks like now if you have so much epoxy that you need to sand it down to apply stain?” For instance, there is a knot in the wood that is severely cracked. I’ve filled the cracks with epoxy, but it almost seems as if the wood (fir) has absorbed som epoxy into the surroundimg grain. There is a ”plastickyness” to this surrounding wood, but I’d still like to have it stained. (I’m looking to darken the very light fir color). – erikejan Jan 05 '22 at 18:38