Color of Stain????

srgntpepper · 10-26-2003, 08:12 PM

I am replacing some of the wood work in the 63 Safari. Does anyone know what color stain was used on it? It almost looks like red oak or cherry but really can't find any matches. Any help would be appreciated

TexasStars · 10-26-2003, 09:21 PM

I recently reconditioned the wood in my 87 M/H and not for sure if the wood is the same as yours but I tried this golden pecan light stain and satin varnish combination(comes in 1 can) looked a little light but all the other stains looked to dark so I tried it anyway and the good thing about it is you can apply as many coats as you want to darken the wood as it goes on light the 1st coat. I had a few worn spots in the wood and this blended in perfectly. This made the wood in the M/H look factory again and is really easy to work with just brush it on. It is made by Minwax and I got this at Home Depot and Lowes has it also. Hope this helps.

**Stefrobrts** · 10-26-2003, 09:44 PM

I was having trouble matching my cabinets, and I just ran into the previous owner at a rally. He'd done some work in it and matched it up pretty well. What he used was a walnut plywood with danish walnut stain. You can look at my photos and see if yours is dark like mine. Hope that helps.

Davydd · 10-26-2003, 09:57 PM

If you can take a sample into an independent paint store you could probably have them match it. Your Home Depot type places are not set up to do that kind of work. But stores that rep major paint manufacturers like Olympic Stain, ICI, Benjamin Moore, Sherwin-Williams, etc. can custom match just about anything you bring in. They can do a spectrographic analysis and come up with a match. That is easy with opaque paint but when staining wood it can get kind of tricky since stains react differently with different kinds of woods.

InsideOut · 10-26-2003, 10:20 PM

The problem with new woodwork in an old trailer is that even if you had the exact same stain used 40 years ago, it wouldn't match. With age it oxidizes and changes color based on the enviroment.

The best bet is as Davydd suggested, take door panel or drawer in to have it matched. Be prepared to possibly have to use 2 or 3 different stains over one another to get the desired finish.

Be prepared, in a couple of years even if they "match" today, the new panels will age and change differently than the 40 year old panels...just something that can't be avoided unless you refinish all the woodwork alike.

Shari