Kids table and chairs

Hi all, in my neverending quest for cheap good furniture I've knocked up a pine table and chairs set for the kids but being a novice in these matters I have some questions regarding the finish.

1. On the advice of a friend and the shop assistant I sealed the wood with wattle sanding sealer prior to construction. The idea is to give a more even finish when staining. Do I need to lightly sand this back prior to staining?

2. I Intend to stain with wattle traditional stain however the back of the sealer can states they don't recommend using wattle traditional stain after using the sealer - any ideas?

3. I intend using beeswax over the top of the stain. I wanted to experiment with a non brush / poly / estapol finish and thought of ragging on some danish oil instead but a friend tells me beeswax gives a nice warm matt finish and can be touched up easily - bear in mind this is kids furniture and they do tend to give it a hiding. Comments please?

Thanks in advance for any suggestoins.

jimmyjames, I would have been more inclined to put the stain on BEFORE the sanding sealer. My reasoning is that the sealer does just that seals, and will not allow the stain to penetrate the timber fibres.


Kev

Using a sanding sealer prior to staining is a bit of a no no, unless you are using something like our shellac based Sanding Sealer which will still allow the stain to soak into the timber where most others will exclude it from the timber. Only someone with good finishing skills should stain over regular sanding sealer.

Wax over stain is completely useless as it will not seal the stain, oil is also just about as useless. You need to use a hard surface coating like shellac, polyurethane, or lacquer.

Personally I wouldn't be staining a pine kids set as it won't be too long before the finish wears through with use and it will begin to look pretty ordinary. As you have already used Wattyl sanding sealer, I would suggest the best and easiest thing to do would be a couple of coats of Estapol and leave it at that.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers - Neil :D

Thanks for that. Made the of mistake of taking the bunnings assistants advice on this one, when I got home and started reading cans (after applying the sealer) I started to suspect something. I'll seal a 2nd coat and just put some estapol over the top.

While we're at it let me ask a few more newbie type questions.

In what situations are oils and waxes to be used in finishing?

How do I prevent an uneven/streaky results when staining pine?

Can I use the beeswax to polish finished furniture?

Thanks fellas.