Staining Tips?....
 

Well its finally come time to stain my homebuilt stand for my new 45 gallon tank. I know next to nothing about woodwork but im happy with the way its turned out so far. The stand is framed with 2x4s then covered with 1/2" Pine plywood all around with a 3/4" slab up on top. My first goal is to stain the two front swinging doors. I have used "glue on with a hot iron" pine stripping (sorry dont know the proper name) for the edges of the doors to make it look finished. I trimed off the excess then sanded it down with 220 sandpaper. Ive done a couple test pieces and found long strokes with a 2" brush seems to be working well in thin coats. I want to let it dry, sand again then give it one more coat. Im using a 2 in 1 stain that doesnt require a finish to be added after. However ive laid the door on its back, stained the front and sides and wanted to do the back side afterward once its dry, but I cant prevent the stain from dripping off the edges and staining part of the backside. This im sure is going to cause a problem when i stain the backside, the edges of the backside will appear way darker and uneven because the edges have already soaked up some of the stain. Is there any way to prevent this from happening? Or fixing it before i stain the backside? I was thinking about adding tape around the backside edges to hopefully prevent most of the stain from soaking up until i flip it over. Any tips are welcome :) Thanks!

Brush stain on, wipe stain off. The trick is to wipe it off and not let it soak in.

sponge works well too for geting the excess off , but like myka said just wipe off right away before it has a chance to soak in with a cloth:) ;)

i was told at rona to just brush it on and leave it which didnt make much sense to me :neutral: Ill give that a shot thanks :) maybe for the edges i can just use a sponge or something. Thanks guys :D

ive always stained with a soft cloth ive used a brush as well but i then wipe it with a cloth:):)

stain
 

use a stain pad instead of a brush.one way to stain it all at once is put some small eye hooks in the bottom of your door and hang it-letting you stain all sides at once and taking off any excess

Are you going to use any sort of sealer before you stain?

I dont believe so.. I was under the impression this 2in1 stain does the job of sealing as well. I did a water resistance test on a piece I already stained and it seemed to repel great. Way better than this exterior wood stain crap i had before that didnt show any wood grain at all. Is a pre sealer necessary?

What brand of stain? 2 -1 stains are just color and top coat protection not sealers. A sealer makes it easier to stain and sand out any drip spots like you are describing.

+1 on the sealer, if you don't use a conditioner on pine it will not stain evenly, personally I hate the 2 in 1 products, use a pre stain conditioner as per directions on the can, then stain and allow full 24 hours dry time prior to clear coating, light sanding between coats of clear should give a nice finish.