Wood stain for Stag Minstrel furniture-(mahogany?)

[TonyW2]

I wonder if any one has had any experience of refurbishing this brand?

It's a very dark brown finish, but when the sprayed finish is fully sanded back, the wood has an orangeish colour. Is it actually a mahogany?

Regardless of the actual wood, has anyone had success with matching up a suitable stain, and if so what did they use, please?

 

[Ryler]

You are talking about painted furniture?
Could be crappy mdf.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

From memory Stag was reasonable looking furniture and was popular in the 1970s and 1980s (possibly earlier or later - all I know is that my brother bought both a bedroom set and a dining room set from Stag in the early 1980s). So in other words probably NOT MDF.

I suspect that Stag used a variety of different timbers to make up the items then sprayed the pieces with a dark tinted lacquer to get a consistent finish colour. This not only darkened all the different timbers (to be consistent) but also served to make any "bright" grain less obtrusive. This has been a common approach in manufacturing furniture for generations (think of the dark oak furniture your granny might have had which could well be a mix of oak, chestnut, ash and even beech) and allows the mixing of more economical hardwood timbers such as poplar, tulip, etc. instead of expensive materials such as all mahogany, teak, etc. In order to get a colour match you may need to resort to staining individual parts differently. This is because a factory would employ expert sprayers to match by eye which is probably not a technique many DIYers would be willing or able to undertake. By choosing an appropriate water-based stain and making up a weak solution it is easier to build-up to the required depth of colour by applying multiple coats (and flatting back then de-dusting between coats) than any technique using oil- or spirit-based dyes and stains.

 

[TonyW2]

Thanks.
I managed to strip it back to the bare solid wood, using decent quality abrasive sheets, and the top. base and edge strips are indeed mixed timber, but it will not be economic to purchase all the stains and finishing items to make a good job of it for a one-off project.
It 's a shame as it is truly well made, but there is no demand for such pieces.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Providing you don't want to end up with a light colour and instead want a dark colour it should be possible to get reasonably consistent colour by the technique I stated above, namely by building up using multiple coats of thinned out water stain. You can"t buy multiple :darknesses" of, say, mahogany stain, because they don"t exist other than in commercial quantities. The difficulty in this technique is judging whether or not add another coat when you are nearing the desired depth of colour, and also having to treat different parts of the furniture piece differently takes a bit of effort and isn't always succesful. As you have fully stripped the piece, though, what do you have to lose?