Bruce Johnson, a designer with the Minwax® Company, stencils a design on the doors of a wood chest, using a gel stain. Then he uses wood markers to demonstrate a wood stain color-blocking technique on the drawer of the chest. Materials:
Wood cabinet
Sandpaper
Tack cloth
Stencil
Minwax Wood Sheen (gel wood stain)
Minwax Wood Finish Stain Markers
Stencil brush
Paper towels
Paintbrush
Polyurethane
Painter's tape
Plastic cup
Metal yardstick
Pencil
- Prepare the wooden chest by sanding it, then removing sanding particles with a tack cloth. Stain the chest if desired, or leave the wood natural.
- Tape the stencil to the cabinet door. Pour the gel stain into a plastic cup. Load a stencil brush with stain, and wipe the brush on paper towels to remove much of the gel. The dry brush will allow the grain of the wood to show through the stain, giving it a burled effect.
- Stencil the gel stain onto the door by pouncing the brush over the stencil. Keep the brush perpendicular to the surface of the wood. Bruce used a simple stencil of a bow design (figure A).
- Remove the stencil and reposition it on the other door, lining it up to match the first door. Repeat the stenciling technique (figure B).
- Remove the drawer from the chest. With a metal yardstick, measure 1" from the edges of the drawer, and draw lines the length and width of the drawer on the front with a pencil (figure C).
- Use a craft knife to score the wood over the pencil lines. This gives the effect of an inlay, and by scoring the wood, you make sure that the stain is contained inside the square (figure D).
- Apply stain, using Minwax Wood Finish Stain Markers, to each square within the scored lines. The markers come in a variety of stains so you can use a combination of light and dark colors (figure E).
- Seal the chest with at least two coats of polyurethane, sanding between each coat.
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