# Help please! Redwood



## JHerrman (Oct 5, 2012)

Hi everyone!

I had a slab of redwood in my basement for years and I finally decided to make a hallway table out of it. I sanded it and put 1 coat of shellac and 2 coats of polyurethane on it. I'm making the legs and an additional shelf out of the wood shown in the pictures. To be honest, I'm not sure what kind of wood it is.

My question: what is the best finish or mixture of finishes that would come closest to matching the redwood?


----------



## SCOTSMAN (Aug 1, 2008)

looks like a really nice piece of wood there are so many new stains and finishes coming onto the market every year it seems now,I would ask those experts who sell and handle these goods for the latest news.I made a truck and a paddle steamer toys in wood and sprayed then after applying sanding sealer they were touch dry in about five to ten minutes wonderful.So have fun. Alistair


----------



## shampeon (Jun 3, 2012)

Just to be clear here, you want the pine/spruce/fir in the second picture to match the slab in the first, right?

If so, you're probably better off mixing your own tint using aniline or TransTint dyes. What I would do is:

Seal the pine/spruce/fir with sanding sealer or a thin coat of shellac so the color will be even. This is to prevent blotchiness.
Take an off-cut and seal that one too.
Mix up some dye (probably some amber, dark brown, and cherry red) and add it to your color vehicle (blonde shellac, lacquer, poly, whatever) to mix your toner coat.
Test out the mixture on your off-cut test piece. Do a couple coats and compare the color to the redwood slab. Adjust the color vehicle with more dye as needed.
Finish the legs and drawers with the toner coat.
Add a thin coat of clear on top to seal in the color, then add a few top coats of clear.


----------

