# PolyShades vs. Wood Finish vs. Wood Stain



## bubbler (Oct 18, 2010)

I know this painting forum, but I was thinking maybe it's the right place to ask this as well.

I have a wooden futon that I'd like to refinish. I'm not sure what species of wood it is, but I'm guessing cedar or maybe teak?

It has a "medium" brown color now, and I'd like to go to a very dark color, nearly black but in the brown family, so I'm looking at the two darker colored PolyShades.

Does anyone have any experience with this product? Good/Bad? I am not expecting a high end finish, I just want the wood to be darker, relatively even colored and with a matte, or ideally, satin finish.

To add a bit of complexity I'm hoping to have this done within a couple of days, and I notice that most other products have a requirement of 8-24 hours drying per coat, meaning that to do 2 coats of stain + 2 coats of poly might up being 2-3 days for me, where-as the PolyShades is 6 hours... if I put a coat on tonight and tomorrow morning, I could transport and use the project by 6PM tomorrow evening, cuts the time in half or better.


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

I would not use poly shades for anything. If your looking for a blotchy finish where some areas just will not take then Poly shades is the one to use.
Far more likly a fouton will be pine.
All the old sealer would need to be sanded off for any new stain to be able to soak in.
If you went with water based stain and sealer it will go much faster.


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## bubbler (Oct 18, 2010)

joecaption said:


> If you went with water based stain and sealer it will go much faster.


From what I'm reading about the PolyShades stuff I'm tending to agree now that it's not a good choice.

I shied from water-based stains and sealer because I was thinking it would not be as durable, and I'm afraid of the whole sanding to deal with raised-grain issue...


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

There just is no way to stain over a sealer it's just going to float on top of the old sealer.
Doing it right takes time.


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## jeffnc (Apr 1, 2011)

joecaption said:


> I would not use poly shades for anything. If your looking for a blotchy finish where some areas just will not take then Poly shades is the one to use.
> Far more likly a fouton will be pine.
> All the old sealer would need to be sanded off for any new stain to be able to soak in.


One advantage PolyShades has is that all the old finish doesn't have to be sanded off first.


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