Wood conditioner for wood finishing preparation

Wood conditioner is special materials to address the problem of blotchy color in the soft wood. Wood conditioner is like a base stain, or thin sealer that serves to reduce the penetration of stain into the wood. Wood conditioner may have different types from one product to another, but in principle it is a barrier to avoid too deep penetration of the stain into the wood. Wood conditioner is applied to the raw wood before the stain application. The wood conditioner can be applied by: wet spraying, wiping, or brushing until it soak and wet the wood surface evenly. Wood conditioner should be applied evenly to completely wet the surface so he could wet and fill at the wood surface that has a high porosity.

The best way to get the maximum advantage of the staining result is by applying the stain directly to the raw wood. We can apply stain by spray, dip, brushed or wipe, but the stain must wet and penetrate into the wood surface. By this application we can get the maximum beauty of wood. This method will let the stain to color the wood and enhance the natural grain and pores of the wood. But this finishing system is often causing problem in some soft wood. Some types of woods such as: pine, maple, alder, etc. are soft porous which has high absorption to the stain. The application of stain directly to the wood has high risk to get problems cause by too much absorption of stain such as: color too dark or blotchy color finish. Wood conditioner is finishing materials to take care this problem. 

The wood conditioner is working similarly with the glue sizing or sealer sizing, but the wood  conditioner is easier in application and handled. It is the material that is specially design to handle the soft wood. Some types of wood conditioner can be followed by stain application without sanding. Wood conditioner of this type is more work as stain base which will reduce the strength of the stain, so it does not too wet and soak into the wood surface. This wood conditioner is usually an oil base and must be followed by the application of stain with the same type (oil base stain).
The other wood conditioner requires drying and sanding process to produce smooth wood surface. This material contains some sealer that will stiff the wood fibers. It has to be sanded to produce smooth and even surface. This wood conditioner can be followed by application of different types of stain. The best way to apply the stain is by spray application since we can do better control to the stain thickness. The application of stain by brushing or dipping has bigger risk to get blotchy color problem, since the uncontrolled the stain thickness at the surface.

Some tips in the application of the wood conditioner.

• Get the proper preparation at the unfinished wood

To get the good finish, we always need to start with the proper preparation at the unfinished wood.  The wood conditioner is not a magic potion that can overcome the finishing problem as a result of poor preparation in the unfinished wood. Do a proper sanding at the unfinished wood; do correction at the wood problem such as: dents, holes, cracks, etc. make sure that the wood is dry before finishing process begins. Most of the finishing problems come from the unfinished preparation.

• Read and follow the technical data sheet.

Every material has it specification. Read the instruction and the technical data of the material. Make sure we already know the character or the wood conditioner and how to apply. 

• Do some test at wood panels first, before making the application to the furniture product.

Wood is an unpredictable material. He could have very large varied properties. The same finishing process on a different wood can produce very different results. Even the same type of wood can be have different properties. Therefore, every time we do a finishing process we should start to do the process at a piece of wood panel with the same type and same condition. Make sure that we have found a proper finishing system before start doing the finishing process at big furniture product.