I'm having to refinish the top rails of my Diamond Pro, which has their usual reddish stain (non-diamondwood).
After talking to Brian at Diamond, he suggested using minwax 225 (red mahogany) stain, and polyurethane to refinish. He said that should be as close as you can get to what they use at the factory.
Well, I tried that. The minwax 225 stain was not a very good match, as it has very little red in it. Also, it was supposed to cure in 4 hours, but apparently wasn't cured after 8 hours, because it picked up into the first coat of the poly. The poly I should have thinned, but this minwax stuff was just a disaster from the very beginning. The poly never dried even to the touch in 24 hours at 75 degrees and ~40% humidity (supposed to dry in 4-6 hours).
So yesterday I sanded all that crap off. I went through about a ream and a half of 100 grit to get through all of the beading non-cured poly and stain.
But finally I got there. I decided I would only have time to shoot nitro lacquer to keep on schedule with the table, so I went and got some stuff at the local woodworking store.
I used Behlen Solar-Lux Medium Brown Mahogany directly on the wood (prepped to 220 grit). This is a 100% dead nuts match for the stain that Diamond is using. It's not close, it's perfect. It might be 1 tiny shade too dark, but using the lacquer reducer mixed in will get it the perfect shade. I liked it dark and used the stain straight from the bottle. Note the pic on the website for this is nothing like the real color (I picked it based on a sample in the store).
The only issue with this stain is that it covers the diamonds, and the diamond name badge. So I hit those with little micro-mesh emery board things that I have around for doing guitar fretwork. I used 1500 to clean them up, and then on the Diamond name badge, I went up to 4000 grit or so to get a nice shine on the metal. You have to be very careful to not take the stain off the surrounding wood at the same time.
Here's a pic after cleaning up the diamonds before going into the first coat:
Next, I started spraying the nitro. I used a HVLP sprayer (a cheap one), and sprayed the Behlen Qualalacq Lacquer. I can't remember if I got satin or gloss, but either one works. I think I got satin.
This was my first attempt at a nitro finish, so the first coat wasn't so hot. I used short diagonal strokes across the rails, and there were some bubbles that dried in the finish. After some sanding, there were a couple spots where the stain had come up, so I rubbed some more stain in. It seems the stain has some solvent in it, so it leaves a sheen when it gets rubbed over the nitro coat. So after the 320 grit sanding and stain touch ups, the rails looked pretty bad going into the second coat.
The second coat came out almost perfect. Nitro causes previous layers to dissolve a bit, and levels out all of the prep issues going in to the next coat. This is great. The second coat had just a couple of bubbles across the whole set of rails, and was built up enough to fill in all of the oak end grain. I could almost have stopped at the second coat.
I'm going to shoot the final coat at lunch today, and then hit it with some wet 1500-2000 grit paper or steel wool to get the final surface once dried. It already looks fantastic going into the third coat, and with nitro things only get better as you go along. It will also be nice to see what it looks like shooting nitro in daylight. I did all of that learning in the dark back yard last night holding a lamp in one hand and the sprayer in the other (I'm brave).
I'll post some pics once everything is completely finished. But I don''t think I'm ever going to mess with the polyurethane hassle ever again. I'm loving this nitro stuff!
After talking to Brian at Diamond, he suggested using minwax 225 (red mahogany) stain, and polyurethane to refinish. He said that should be as close as you can get to what they use at the factory.
Well, I tried that. The minwax 225 stain was not a very good match, as it has very little red in it. Also, it was supposed to cure in 4 hours, but apparently wasn't cured after 8 hours, because it picked up into the first coat of the poly. The poly I should have thinned, but this minwax stuff was just a disaster from the very beginning. The poly never dried even to the touch in 24 hours at 75 degrees and ~40% humidity (supposed to dry in 4-6 hours).
So yesterday I sanded all that crap off. I went through about a ream and a half of 100 grit to get through all of the beading non-cured poly and stain.
But finally I got there. I decided I would only have time to shoot nitro lacquer to keep on schedule with the table, so I went and got some stuff at the local woodworking store.
I used Behlen Solar-Lux Medium Brown Mahogany directly on the wood (prepped to 220 grit). This is a 100% dead nuts match for the stain that Diamond is using. It's not close, it's perfect. It might be 1 tiny shade too dark, but using the lacquer reducer mixed in will get it the perfect shade. I liked it dark and used the stain straight from the bottle. Note the pic on the website for this is nothing like the real color (I picked it based on a sample in the store).
The only issue with this stain is that it covers the diamonds, and the diamond name badge. So I hit those with little micro-mesh emery board things that I have around for doing guitar fretwork. I used 1500 to clean them up, and then on the Diamond name badge, I went up to 4000 grit or so to get a nice shine on the metal. You have to be very careful to not take the stain off the surrounding wood at the same time.
Here's a pic after cleaning up the diamonds before going into the first coat:
Next, I started spraying the nitro. I used a HVLP sprayer (a cheap one), and sprayed the Behlen Qualalacq Lacquer. I can't remember if I got satin or gloss, but either one works. I think I got satin.
This was my first attempt at a nitro finish, so the first coat wasn't so hot. I used short diagonal strokes across the rails, and there were some bubbles that dried in the finish. After some sanding, there were a couple spots where the stain had come up, so I rubbed some more stain in. It seems the stain has some solvent in it, so it leaves a sheen when it gets rubbed over the nitro coat. So after the 320 grit sanding and stain touch ups, the rails looked pretty bad going into the second coat.
The second coat came out almost perfect. Nitro causes previous layers to dissolve a bit, and levels out all of the prep issues going in to the next coat. This is great. The second coat had just a couple of bubbles across the whole set of rails, and was built up enough to fill in all of the oak end grain. I could almost have stopped at the second coat.
I'm going to shoot the final coat at lunch today, and then hit it with some wet 1500-2000 grit paper or steel wool to get the final surface once dried. It already looks fantastic going into the third coat, and with nitro things only get better as you go along. It will also be nice to see what it looks like shooting nitro in daylight. I did all of that learning in the dark back yard last night holding a lamp in one hand and the sprayer in the other (I'm brave).
I'll post some pics once everything is completely finished. But I don''t think I'm ever going to mess with the polyurethane hassle ever again. I'm loving this nitro stuff!
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