Minwax For A Woody?

[93Z34]

Has anyone here ever used Minwax to stain the woodgrain on a Woody model? I have a couple Woodies and was contemplating trying to stain the wodgrain portion with this stain but was curious as to whether anyone else has tried this....

[Jairus]

Plastic is not porous like wood, nor is it made up of fibrous particles to soak up and store wood stain. Therefore, I would not recommend using any products designed to stain wood to make plastic LOOK like wood.

On the other hand, stand back 25 feet from a real woody and just try to see the wood grain patterns. Generally, the structural wood pieces are a lighter color, have a slight yellow tinge, and no apparent wood grain. The paneling however usually has noticeable grain.

The simplest method is to paint a base color on the framework and a base color on the panels (usually darker). Then mask off the framework and lightly dry brush horizontally very light tan and then black over the panels to simulate the grain.

Clear coat the whole structure and you are done!

Of course replacing the plastic pieces with real wood is even better….

[Smart-Resins]

yes Jairus is right.If you use the stain on anything other then wood it basically does not "soak in" thus does not dry completly and will leave you a sticky gouey mess wich Im sure would be a real mess to clean up and strip.Stain actually is a mixture of colors mixed with wichever base the company uses.It soaks into the wood and the base will eventually evaporate leaving the color mixtures in the wood grain.I work in a custom cabinet shop and we have been asked to stain plastic and stain over paint.We always have to tell them that we can not do it.We had one customer that just absolutly had to have us stain his painted white cabinets.We had him sign a waiver form on the cabinets before we began.When we got done he was upset at the outcome and wanted us to re-do them.He was more upset when he had to pay us extra to redo them because we had him sign the waiver and he realized that DUH, we must know what we are talking about LOL.Now if you do balsa wood or bass wood panels for the model as they are readily available in most good hobby stores(other types too), they take it very well.I suggest to do your stain in that case, then a sealer on both sides of the wood since it is so thin to assure the stain remains in the wood well, then use a 30 to not make it too shiny, but give it some shine as the real cars lost some shine due to the weather conditions they remained in all of the time.I hope this helps.

[Biscuitbuilder]

Has anyone here ever used Minwax to stain the woodgrain on a Woody model? I have a couple Woodies and was contemplating trying to stain the wodgrain portion with this stain but was curious as to whether anyone else has tried this....

Real woodies, through the 1930's, tended to be built from birch plywood, with either maple or ash framing (the raised wooden parts of the bodies). Both of these woods are hardwood, and as such, both are very fine-grained, the grain almost invisible once you stand back say, 10' or so.

Beginning in the late 1930's, some body companies doing woodie wagon bodies, began using Honduran mahogany for the plywood panels, but retained the lighter hardwoods of either maple or ash for framing--again, both were still very fine-grained, the grain not really all that visible except when viewing up close.

Ford, starting in late 1940, started using Southern Gumwood, a reddish wood, as the surface ply on the plywood panels they were making at Ironwood, MI, but still with ash framing. Gumwood, in addition to its reddish color, does have a strong 'banding' of colors along the grain, but the ash still is very fine in grain.

Hope this helps!

Biscuitbuilder

[Ed Billing]

If you use a basecoat for staining fiberglass or steel doors, then use a gel stain over it you can use a wood stain on plastic. I have done some of this on one woody and it came out great. I also did a fuel cell can on a racecar and the officals were ready to toss us out until I got a magnet and stuck on it to prove it was really steel. Then the officals all wanted their friends to see it and we about had to leave the decklid open the whole weekend. LOL

The Old Masters brand of base coat and gel stain is what I have used, there is a new product called Real Wood I've got at the shop that looks as if it might work but I haven't tried it yet.