Graining for Wood Finishing

Wood graining is a step in the wood finishing to make artificial grain. Wood graining is done to make the “wood look” in the finishing. Wood graining can be performed with the glaze application at the sealer or base coat (see our previous article: wood graining). The graining can also be done with a wood stain on the raw wood. The graining can be performed by a stain with a particular color (usually dark brown or black) at the wood to mimic the wood grain. This wood graining process is done to touch up the puttied wood or to enhance the wood with a vague grain. The wood graining is then followed by the next finishing process to make the desired color. 

Wood graining is art handwork. It needs to be done patiently, carefully, and cautiously. It is an art to paint the wood. The stain should be at the proper strength. Too thin stain will make the vague grain look like we cannot make the grain effect. While too strong stain can bring to the “too artificial grain” that is not naturally looked. 

Here's how to do wood graining:

paint the stain to make the grain

sand the "too thick stain"

Use a small tip brush (artist brush). Dip the tip of the brush into the wood stain; just dip the tip, not the whole brush; let the tip be wet and hold the stain. We can swap the wet brush with a rag to avoid “too wet stain.". Then brush the stain to line as the grain looked. We can follow the existing wood grain to enhance the vague wood grain, or we can make the new grain line. Do the brushing carefully; make sure the stain line is formed continuously and naturally. 
The stain line must be maintained to remain continuous, smooth, and naturally looking. We can sand the stain if the stain is too thick. If necessary, we can use thinner to wipe the stain and reduce the stain strength.

Do carefully check for the graining result before going to the next finishing process. Any correction for the wood grain can be done before the finishing process. Make sure we got the proper graining, then we can start to do the complete finishing process. 

the finish result

 Wood graining  video