Water-Based Wiping Stain as a Glaze
A finisher likes the simplicity of using his water-based stain as a glaze, but wonders if he will have problems in the long run. September 16, 2008
Question
All of the glazing methods I hear about seem so hard. I have recently given up trying to work with the glaze products that are on the market as I need something that is simple. I have found it easier to use a waterbased wiping stain as my glaze and just sandwich it between sealer coats. This has worked well on all my sample pieces, but I was wondering what adverse effects this may have long term.
Forum Responses
(Finishing Forum)
From contributor A:
Oil based glaze is just brush on and wipe off – one coat vinyl and two finish coats.
From the original questioner:
I am aware of that. It's the dry time and proper mixing of the glaze that seems to be a problem for my finisher. I always end up re-doing the product due to wrinkling. As it stands, I have found it easier to use water based wiping stains as my glaze. Not only does this help to avoid the wrinkling, but it means almost every guy in my P/S can do it.
From contributor B:
What waterbased glaze do you use? The ones I've tried dry way too fast to be usable.
From the original questioner:
I do not use an actual glaze. We are an environmentally friendly company and have switched all of our stains to Water Based Wipe. I use my wiping stains as glaze. The base is made by Akzo Nobel out of Salem, OR. This seems to work at this point, but I wonder if there will be long term issues?
From contributor C:
Do your cross hatch adhesion test using a real cross hatch testing tool? If your adhesion is good then you're OK. What Akzo Nobel product are you using? What's the working time of your waterbased wiping stain before it starts to set up and become unworkable? How long do you have to wait before you can continue with your finishing and topcoating?
In general, you shouldn't have any issues as long as you don't have appreciable accumulation of your stain and as long as you are respecting your dry times. The wrinkling of your oil glazes was caused by violating the window of time that you need for topcoating/locking the glaze in versus waiting out a full cure and then adding finish coats on top.
An oil glaze has certain windows: a working time, a shooting time to lock it in, or missing that locking in time a full cure time. Oil glazes are either linseed oil based - these are traditional glazes – or alkyd based glazes. The linseed oil or the alkyd bases are the binders (the glue that keeps the colorants in the glazes together once the solvents in the glazes evaporate) in these oily glazes.
Another type of glaze is the powder glaze. Nowadays several companies have their own versions of these. It wasn't too long ago that it was only ML Campbell who had this with their Amazing Glaze. You spray the stuff on, wait for it to flash (within minutes) and use woven abrasives, steel wool or sandpaper to highlight and take off what you don't want.
There's no end to the possibilities available when you have in your arsenal all the different types of glazes. If what you're doing works for you and your customers are happy, who can say differently?
From the original questioner:
The product number is 620-C020-383. It works as far as I can tell as the samples I made for myself are not wrinkling or anything yet. Basically, it's a wipe stain base sealed then sanded. Then I apply my wipe stain that I use for my glaze and let dry as needed. Once dry I can choose to seal and/or topcoat. I have done both without any immediate problems. As I stated, they still look good after 3 weeks.
From contributor D:
Wrinkling will happen right away. Adhesion problems will be with you forever. Do the adhesion test suggested for your own piece of mind.
From contributor E:
Ronan makes a nice WB glazing product. It is distributed by Homestead Finishing.
