Can You Gel Stain Laminate Cabinets

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Can you gel stain laminate cabinets.

Before you start painting laminate cabinets gently wipe away settled on grime and grease using trisodium phosphate. In addition to this non permeable surface factor general finishes gel stain is an oil based product and it is more difficult to obtain proper drying characteristics over a dense manufactured surface such as laminate. The gel will cover up the wood grain that is in the plastic while the tinted polyurethane will allow the faux grain look to show through. Fortunately for those with laminate cabinets gel stain works well on a variety of surfaces other than real wood allowing you to stain your cabinets without leaving them a streaky splotchy mess.

Gel stain will not require you to sand the product to a raw wood finish. While gel stain does go on thick and sit on the surface of the wood i found that you can still see and feel the natural wood grain beneath unlike paint. Absorbs evenly across porous and non porous spots. A gel stain is thicker than regular staining products and most surfaces don t absorb it.

In most cases you ll simply need to coat a paintbrush in laminate stain and apply the stain coating evenly to the surface of the cabinet itself. Compared to paint gel stain. Can glob up in corners. It is important to know the exact type of material covering your cabinets before attempting to stain them.

Gel stains as all wood stains were formulated to go over raw wood which has an open surface and can absorb some of the stain. Is very diy friendly. Preparing to stain cabinets. You could choose to use minwax polyshades to stain laminate or a similar brand.

Then rinse with fresh water and dry the cabinets completely. Open up the laminate stain cans and check for instructions on how to stain the cabinets on the sides of the cans. Since laminate isn t real wood and won t absorb anything it s just what you need. Gel stain is different from regular stain because it sits on the surface of the furniture instead on absorbing into the wood.

Beginning with the backside of the cabinet coat each cabinet lightly with the gel stain using an old cloth or foam brush. This is the same process for prepping cabinets to paint. It will appear streaky. With the oak cabinets the grain was very evident post staining.

Then rinse with. Lay out the cabinets over a set of newspapers or scrap paper and prepare to stain them. Paint which is best for cabinets. You can sand and stain wood veneer cabinets a darker color.

Otherwise the laminate will just sit in a sticky layer on top of the laminate and be tacky each time you go to open the cabinet. The gel stain is thick like pudding not a liquid.