General Finishes: Rosewood Stain

So, I generally have been on record as being not exactly pro-stain; however, I have used it in the past with postiive results. Also, I got a custom order recently that requested this stain be used, so I figured it was a good excuse to snap a few pictures to demonstrate what exactly this kind of stain does.

This. It does this.

Okay, with that caption we can pretty much wrap this up.

Oh, yeah that's not very fulfilling is it?

Unstained red oak next to an open container of stain

Okay, so I used General Finishes Water Base Wood Stain Rosewood.

It has a thick, gel, consistency. You wipe it onto your project thickly, and then wipe the excess (there will be excess) off. In my experience the gel-thickness stains (they make thin wood dyes as well) color a very thin, surface-level, layer of the wood that you stain. Some stains penetrate farther into the wood's surface, this one tends to be more superficial.

It transforms red oak from this:

No stain!

Into this:

Stain!

Obviously, it more or less turns the oak into a canvas onto which one can paint. General Finishes is a great purveyor of stains and (shocker) finishes. They have an array of colors, stains, and dyes that one can use to achieve a desired aesthetic.