Thread: How to get pine to look like baltic pine

Do some tests, try mixing the dyes & testing until you get what you want.

Have a look at this post where I was doing some tests.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...70#post1711470

The brown stain was mixed by adding a bit of Orange to Cedar.

The Cedar comes out purple on some timber.

You can also try strong black tea.

Ta Cliff,
I'll give em a try.
Peter

Another possibility if, like me, any colour you try to mix ends up just being brown, is to try Rustin's Wood Dyes.

http://www.rustins.com.au/rustins/rustinswooddy.htm

They have a colour called "Antique Pine". I haven't had a chance to try the product myself as yet. A family member used it an unfinished pine wardrobe that they'd bought. They got some fairly pleasing results with it, although I can't say whether the colour they achieved is similar to Baltic Pine. It is a chemical dye, not a pigment stain, so it behalves a bit differently to pigment based stains. I'm not sure where to buy it in Aus. Carrols Woodcraft Supplies stock some Rustins products, so they might be a starting point if you want to try the dye.


Roy

the light oak is a nice colour as well.

Its for a rocking horse stand.
The horse is jarrah stain and quite dark.
Just wanted something to contrast a bit.

carrolls don't list it but I'm sure they could get it.
I'll try pops shed as well, I remember seeing they have a few rustins products as well.

Or wait for the email for the next time woodsmith is open.

Ok, so my take on all the suggested snake oil remedies is that yes they can work, however, equally they can also be a little too much hit and miss. From my experience, one of the problems between new and old pines (be it radiata, baltic, huon, kauri, or celery, is that they have a different rate of take up of stains and polishes. That is the grain of new timber is tighter than old timbers and this seems to prevent the absorption rate.

On the converse, old weathered and/or previously painted pines (especially Baltic, Huon and kauri) and even radiata for some reason readily colour up nicely. My take is that it there is likely to be a dual effect happening. Firstly it is the base pigments/oils in paints (especially the oil based paints) as used in the past that integrate into the wood fibres/grain, which somehow allow for shellacs, oils, stains to better work in colouring timber. In the case of weathered pines, again my take is that it may be due to both exposure to UV and water which somehow affects the fibres of timber (opening them up) and thus rendering them better to taking up colour from surface treatments applied.

So and back to the question, I have generally used a mixture of stains (Baltic, huon pine, and even darker stains (eg walnut) to make up a staining brew and integrated it into a shellac mix, when trying to blend in radiata with Baltic or even coating new Baltic to give it an antique look. Its a bit of a black art and experimentation with some offcuts is my best advice. The only other thing also to think about is how to apply. Brushing with the use of stains can be problematic, giving a streaky look, and so needs to be worked in carefully to minimize this. It is even more problematic if you are coating with straight shellac afterwards. The alcohol in metho will liberate some of the stains, hence the streaking issue. The other way is to use a shellac rubber and pad it on. This seems to work better.

I have recently coated an old and deliberately abused radiata pine floor in my home to be able to blend it in with the remaining wide old Baltic floor boards. The finishing coats were 3 coats of Tung Oil. The finished result is IMHO very good and unless one looks closely you could be excused for thinking the entire floor is Baltic. Hope that helps a little.