Can You Gel Stain Laminate Cabinets

A laminate stain can be a gel or tinted polyurethane.

Can you gel stain laminate cabinets.

Lay out the cabinets over a set of newspapers or scrap paper and prepare to stain them. Preparing to stain cabinets. It will appear streaky. With the oak cabinets the grain was very evident post staining.

You would then follow with 2 coats of primer prior to paint. A gel stain is thicker than regular staining products and most surfaces don t absorb it. Absorbs evenly across porous and non porous spots. 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.

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. Is very diy friendly. Gel stain is different from regular stain because it sits on the surface of the furniture instead on absorbing into the wood. However this is not an option.

Beginning with the backside of the cabinet coat each cabinet lightly with the gel stain using an old cloth or foam brush. Paint which is best for cabinets. Wearing the gloves gently stir the gel stain. Gel stain will not require you to sand the product to a raw wood finish.

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. 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. This is the same process for prepping cabinets to paint. It is important to know the exact type of material covering your cabinets before attempting to stain them.

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. Open up the laminate stain cans and check for instructions on how to stain the cabinets on the sides of the cans. The gel stain is thick like pudding not a liquid. Compared to paint gel stain.

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. Since laminate isn t real wood and won t absorb anything it s just what you need. You could choose to use minwax polyshades to stain laminate or a similar brand. Can glob up in corners.

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. Then rinse with fresh water and dry the cabinets completely.