Best way to remove stain?

[Jon Rista]

Well I just made a small mistake with one of the candlestick holders I've been working on. I am staining the sides of these, but leaving the bottoms (and a curved rim at the bottom) as well as the tops and the hole for the candlesticks bare wood, unstained. I didn't realize that one of the fingers I was using to hold the top of the candlestick holder had just a tiny bit of stain on it (It might have been a small splatter I didn't notice), and I got a little bit of stain on the top rim. I sanded it a little bit...to see if that might get rid of it, but it seems to go deep enough that sanding won't get rid of it (not, at least, without significantly changing the design.)

I am wondering what the best way to remove stain is. I have this really noxious, horrid gel crap from Klean Strip. I hate using it, but, outside of water based stripper, its the only other stuff I know of that is allowed to be sold in Colorado. I am not sure if acetone will do it? Or something else? I'd like to see if I can clean this up, as I had limited pieces of wood to turn these out of, and have no more left. Each candlestick is stained a unique color, this one was white. Would really like to fix it...as I don't think I can replace it, and I need four in total.

Thanks!

 

[Jim Reynolds]

You might be able to bleach the stain away, but I would recommend doing an experiment with identical wood and stain first to see if the outcome meets your needs and expectations. You'll likely need specialized wood bleach.

 

[hockenbery]

Turning it off is probably not an option.

if it is an alcohol soluable stain/dye repeatedly dabbing the spot with a clean cloth or Qtip wet with alchohol will take up the dye/stain. It won’t remove the last bit you can see but it may lighten and spread it out enough so that no one else can see it easily.

If the design allows you could piece on a new rim.

If the stain remains you can do something with all the rims.
Can always color the rims a matching color. Airbrush with transparent or opaque colors. Black, silver, gold fluorescent colors…

Gold leaf the rims

 

[Jon Rista]

Turning it off is probably not an option.

if it is an alcohol soluable stain/dye repeatedly dabbing the spot with a clean cloth or Qtip wet with alchohol will take up the dye/stain. It won’t remove the last bit you can see but it may lighten and spread it out enough so that no one else can see it easily.

If the design allows you could piece on a new rim.

If the stain remains you can do something with all the rims.
Can always color the rims a matching color. Airbrush with transparent or opaque colors. Black, silver, gold fluorescent colors…

Gold leaf the rims

I am not sure if its alcohol soluble. It is soya oil based. Not sure what solvents they have used for this. I'll try alcohol and see how it goes. This is a nano-particulate stain, and, I think that it may be fairly in the grain, so there might not be anything I can do now.

The others have had tung oil used on all the bare-wood surfaces. So getting them stained to look the same is unlikely to happen at this point. I'll take a picture of a couple to show what I've been doing. I almost sealed this one with tung oil, but noticed that I'd gotten stain on the outer part of the rim before I actually covered that part. This particular one, is maple, which is pretty light colored, and the stain is white. Without the tung oil, its a little hard to see that there is any stain on there, outside of some spots that may be end grain tubes or something.

I'm out of acetone, it looks like. I have both DNA and 90% Isopropyl...not sure if the latter is a possibility. I have the gel stripper...I guess if alcohol doesn't work, I can try that. That stuff removes poly, spar, oils, it even eats through every kind of glove I've ever used (and it will eat through skin, too, if you get it on you!!) Its pretty thick, broad-stroke kind of stuff, though....the rims on these candle holders are...1/4" wide? And they flare out, so there is a part that is pretty thin.

 

[Bill Blasic]

If the place where you got the stain on is not end grain you may be able to sand it off but if it is end grain it is amazing how deep a little stain will go.

 

[John K Jordan]

That’s a tough one. As mentioned, some stain can go very deep. Depending on where, and the type of wood, and the type of stain, it may not be removable. Solvents will generally drive the stain deeper into the wood, along the grain. Wood bleach can remove color from wood but never tried it on stain. Due the the nature of some species of wood and the type of stain, it simply might not be removable. And some stains can seep far into some species.

If stain cannot be removed, and that candlestick cannot be rebuilt, maybe there is another option other that starting over and remaking them all, such as remaking the rims on all. (Possibly a good idea anyway where just certain parts of a piece are stained. Sometimes paints and markers are a better option than stain for pieces with more than one color. Sometimes, it’s best to make multicolored things in more than one piece.

It’s hard to guess based on the information given. pictures of the candlesticks pot and the problem area might be helpful, and knowing the type of wood and stain might be helpful.

Before trying anything on that piece, I might first turn some sample pieces with the same wood and sanding, duplicate the problem, and try the solvents, bleach, etc. on the samples.

JKJ

 

[Alan Weinberg]

Or amend your plan and stain all the top rims

 

[BobCoates]

Or you always have the options stated here :
https://www.aawforum.org/community/threads/less-than-perfect-pieces.24031/unread
Sorry had to post as joke.

 

[Jon Rista]

Or amend your plan and stain all the top rims

I could have done that, but, most of them had already been sealed with tung oil on the tops and bottoms. I used the nasty gel stuff, and it removed most of the stain that was more surface level. Cleaned it up as best as I am going to get, I think. There are still some areas where the stain clearly went into the pores of the wood. I just decided to leave it. Its not all that noticable, and this was the only one out of the four with issues. I sanded the rim a bit, and that did thin it out some, so it looks slightly different than the others. I'll get some photos soon here.

I clearly need to pay more attention to my fingers when using this stain. It seems to splatter pretty easily, little tiny droplets. It doesn't take much to cause a problem.