The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Making a Stovebolt Bed finish on wood bed

I'm going to use pine and need some ideas for a finish. I don't want to paint the boards, I want to water proof with stain. I was thinking of leaving it flat but now I am leaning towards some kind of varnish to give it some shine. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks Bob.

Bob,
Im doin my Hickory bed boards in Minwax "HELMSMAN" gloss poly.
It has the UV protectant and all that for outdoor use.
just put down coat 5 an man are they lookin nice!
Tim

Bob,

Check out the new folder on my webshots page. I have a few samples of stain (and plain) on pine boards. From the left, you'll see Early American, Early American with a spray varnish, Brown Mahogany, and Brown Mahogany with spray varnish. I'm going with the same "HELMSMAN" as Tim to finish the wood.

Hope this helps. Keep an eye out as I finish this portion of the project this week.
David

Bob, I notice you plan to use pine and stain it if I understand your question. If it is yellow pine, be sure to test your stain on sample boards before committing your expensive bed wood to the process. Yellow pine just does not receive stain very well and it is hard to get it to look uniform. The darker grain is very hard and the wood between grain lines is very soft and absorbs stain like a sponge. When you try to wipe it off, it is real hard to make it uniform, and even when coated with varnish, the stain may not be satisfactory. A good exterior polyurethane like Helmsman without stain will give a nice amber color to the wood and many people prefer that to using stains on yellow pine. When you stain yellow pine, it just looks like stained yellow pine. We suggest that you have your wood supplier furnish some extra short pieces of the same wood so you can test your finish process.

If you have not seen our test, http://www.mar-k.com/wood_finish_testing_ii.html here is a link that you might find interesting. I just checked the test boards, and the black painted boards still look great with no failure and every other coating is totally failed. This is after nearly 4 years in the weather 24/7.

Mar-Ktech

Hi Boboreno, from my past experiences as cabinetmaker I know pine will go bloshy when trying to stain it, getting it to look even is difficult & next to impossible. If you were to look at a clear pine finish 6 mos. or so down the road the vary same piece of pine would now have a very nice honey hew color without actually staining it. The Ultra violet rays of the sun and nature will do that for you without the bloches. Just for fun, find a sample piece of pine that was clear coated when new, then take a new piece and clear finish it, lay down the old & new pcs side by side and you will see what nature has done to naturally
color it. Hope this can help preserve & color that beautiful pine.

This is sure a timely post for me. I am getting ready to put the finish on my pine planks shortly. - http://etv.net/users/jmcneel/59.html#BED - I was going to use POR15, but the planks have such a nice grain that I may use something else. I have some of the Minwax "HELMSMAN" "clear" on hand as well as the POR15. Eventually I plan to build more garage space to keep my '59 out of the elements, but it's at least a year out. The wood will see at least a year of exposure before I get it done. One idea I have entertained was to lightly sandblast the wood to contrast the grain pattern so it would still be visible after applying POR15. Has anyone seen that done?

I would like to know if you decide to ruff up the grain some with sand blast. I was hoping to find some nice rough sawn planking and use POR 15 to seal to get the effect it sounds like you are after.

I've seen the sandblasting done on the bed before. I think they did it on Chop Cut Rebuild on a '53 Chevy. Really brings out the wood grain. If you're going with Helmsman, you're going to have to put a dozen coats on before you have a smoothe layer.

As far as staining pine wood to the color of your desire, if you're not building a show truck (and if you're considering using POR15 on the bed, I'm guessing you're not) I'd say go for it. I just finished staining pine planks with Brown Mahogany and covered it with 3 coats of Helmsman. There are spots with lighter layers of stain, but I think it came out great. I have one more coat to put on the bottom of the boards and then I'll be installing them tonight or tomorrow. I'll post pictures on my webshots when it's all done.

After experimenting on scraps, I finally came up with what I wanted. I wanted to duplicate the stain of the original stove black and linseed oil but with more gloss. What I ended up doing was to apply a wet coat of black paint then wipe it off quickly. That gave me a nice, slightly distressed, dark stain that still shows the grain nicely. I followed that with several coats of 'Helmsman' clear gloss. I will put one more coat of 'Helmsman' on tomorrow then put it all together when it cures. I really like the way it's turning out. I think if I do another, I may experiment with using the body color for stain followed by 'Helmsman'. It may not work as well with brighter colors though.

Joe,

Was that black paint you used latex or oil based??

Thanks,
Spot

According to the label, it's a gloss black, high solids industrial coating. It comes in a rattle can and I belive it's an enamel similar to Krylon. It had no adverse reactions with the 'Helmsman' when I experimented on scraps so I went with it. I also experimented with some red and white of the same paint. The red sort of over powered the grain but the white gave an interesting affect. Here's a pic of the finished planks in place:
http://etv.net/users/jmcneel/woodin.jpg
http://etv.net/users/jmcneel/59.html#WOOD

Do you know the brand and where you bought it? I guess probably any quality brand of gloss black would work.

Spot

Actually it's sort of a generic supplied by Bowman Distributing. It had been in a bin on my work truck for a while. We quit using Bowman a while back so I don't know if it's still available. I think Krylon would work. The key for it to work for me was to put a heavy enough coat on that it does'nt start to dry before you can wipe it off. Most spray paints flash out pretty quick and you need the solvents to get enough to wipe off so the grain shows up good. I also let it cure several hours before the first coat of 'Helmsman'. You will want some fairly lint free rags and some rubber gloves.

Not to belabor the point, but wouldn't I fare better using a paint that came in a quart can and use a brush to put it on with?
That way I wouldn't have to worry about the paint drying too quickly before I wiped it off.

Just thought it would work better as a practical matter.

Thanks Joe,

Spot

Possibly, but when it's 20 miles to the nearest store, I try what's on hand first.

Lowes is just 5 minutes from my house so I'll go buy a quart of black paint and go at it!!

Spot