
Wood conditioner before polyurethane. Apply stain within two hours of application of pre stain wood conditioner. While some companies manufacture wood conditioner with a large concentration of solvents this may be too complicated to mix yourself. But they are smaller pieces of wood. I am getting to the end stages of building a desk out of maple.
Wood conditioner is used to partially seal the grain of porous wood. Allow to penetrate for 5 to 15 minutes then remove any excess with clean dry cloth. Instead you can make your own pre stain wood conditioner by thinning a solvent based finish. Pour the products into a glass jar and gently stir the mixture with a flat stir stick.
For open grain woods like oak ash or walnut you can apply a wood grain filler before the polyurethane to create an ultra smooth finished surface. Should i use a wood conditioner on my maple wood before applying tung oil finish or polyurethane. Wipe off the excess. To seal the wood before top coating thin your oil based polyurethane to one part mineral spirits and two parts polyurethane first gently stir the contents in the can.
As with all wood finishes good results depend on smooth clean wood surfaces but this goes double with clear finishes such as polyurethane. On page 109 of the first edition of your book understanding wood finishing rodale press you say allow the solvent to soak in. I have tried a bit of both on a test piece of wood and so far i have not noticed any blotching or other issues. If you use anything before tung oil that creates any kind of barrier or seals the wood in any way youve defeated the benefit of tung oil.
The label on my can of minwax wood conditioner instructs me to apply the stain within two hours well before the wood conditioner has cured. Sand your wood with at least 220 grit sandpaper.