Why can't I stain timber black?
All,
Obviously there's some fundamental issue that I'm missing so please enlighten me!
I'm making some simple picture frames that I want to be black. I could paint them but I thought I'd stain them to retain the grain pattern.
I got some Feast Watson Japan black and straight black stains and as a test, I did 4 applications on each of pine DAR and tassie oak DAR. The finish is black-ish (more so the black stain than the Japan) and the grain pattern shows really well, but they are not black, more black-ish coloured timber. I can see the yellow of the pine and the light brown of the T/O coming through.
Is there a pre-treatment I'm supposed to use or are my expectations re Black over cooked?
Cheers,
Mark.