# Making New Cabinet Doors Match Existing Older Ones



## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

Challenge; to get three new cabinet doors to match newly refinished 45 year old cabinet doors.

Problem; The new doors, even thought the same type of wood (Red Oak), have a brighter, whiter look compared to the older doors. Even with a thorough sanding, the older wood has some age induced ambering which the new wood lacked. When I only applied a gold/yellow Rudd stain (which was used on the older doors) onto the new wood, it left the new doors with a much too light look.

Solution; First, the new doors were given a coat of Old Masters Natural Tint base stain to add a bit of amber tone (picture 1).

Second, the coat of Natural Tint base stain was mostly sanded away only leaving a hint of ambering and highlighting of some of the heavier graining (picture 2).

Third, the gold/yellow Rudd stain (which was used for the refinishing of the original boxes, doors, and drawers) was added over the top of the door where the natural tint had been sanded away.

Fourth picture shows one of the stained new doors (left) next to one of the older, already refinished doors. In the pic you can see there is a bit of richness still lacking in the new door but after an application of the clear top coat (Emtech 8000 Pre-Catalyzed Waterborne Conversion Varnish), that richness should appear.

Fortunately, the new doors are actually going to be false panels so the backs (which would never show) allowed me ample areas to experiment on. Plus, I bid this job time and materials which allowed me the time (within reason) to do the experimenting needed to get the best match possible.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Good luck with that. 

If it were me, I'd mix a tiny bit of stain, with about 5 parts lacquer thinner, put it in a cup gun, hold it high, and lightly mist it and see if it richen up a little. It might even work better if it has a coat of clear. worse case scenario, I'd do a light tint spray to the whole project, just to give them all a touch of the same color. Im not saying thats the correct way to do it, but I've used this method quite a bit when people want darker or richer stains than it will go naturally. I know theres a lot of toners, and different stain combos you can use, but I dont have much experience with that thing, so I use me ghetto method, with good results, for the most part.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

Woodco said:


> Good luck with that.
> 
> If it were me, I'd mix a tiny bit of stain, with about 5 parts lacquer thinner, put it in a cup gun, hold it high, and lightly mist it and see if it richen up a little. It might even work better if it has a coat of clear. worse case scenario, I'd do a light tint spray to the whole project, just to give them all a touch of the same color. Im not saying thats the correct way to do it, but I've used this method quite a bit when people want darker or richer stains than it will go naturally. I know theres a lot of toners, and different stain combos you can use, but I dont have much experience with that thing, so I use me ghetto method, with good results, for the most part.


Actually, I have used my HVLP to do just what you suggested; tinting the clear coat and misting it to get a more uniform color. Most of the cabinet jobs we do incorporate that process. Unfortunately, can't spray on site on this one. Plus, everything was done before the three extra doors were brought in so just simpler to do em' somewhat old school. Looks like I got lucky and achieved a good match.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Thats good.

Im not a fan fan of tinting clear coats. I like about a 5-1 ratio stain to lacquer thinner, and gradually tint up the wood. If its going over another clear and I dont want a thin layer of oil on the surface, I'll mix the with clear, but still thin it way down with lacquer thinner. I just dont like that look of strongly tinted clears.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

Woodco said:


> Thats good.
> 
> Im not a fan fan of tinting clear coats. I like about a 5-1 ratio stain to lacquer thinner, and gradually tint up the wood. If its going over another clear and I dont want a thin layer of oil on the surface, I'll mix the with clear, but still thin it way down with lacquer thinner. I just dont like that look of strongly tinted clears.


I agree about strongly tinted clears not giving a good look. They tend to make the coats too opaque which can almost give it a painted look obscuring the grain too much. Typically, most of the staining I do gets done prior to the application of any tinted clear. Then a fine mist coat of the tinted clear to level out the coloring a bit and that's it. Then I follow up with several coats of the non-tinted clear to give extra protection. I also like that the Emtech 8000 itself seems to have a fairly clean look to it rather than the milky cast some water based clears can have. 

A big part of why I now prefer the water based clears is because I am trying to cut back on the use of solvent based products in what we do. Sometime ago I decided that the WB products are going to be the wave of the future (which is already here for many) and so I set out to develop a process with products I felt gave optimum results. I still concede to using oil based stains because I just don't care for the WB ones that are on the market, but that is all I use that aren't WB. The WB clear coats, although perhaps not as sharp as the solvent based ones, are just so much more user and customer friendly that the benfits of using them far outweigh the drawbacks - of which there are fewer and fewer all the time. Also, their relatively fast dry and recoat time adds to their appeal.


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## journeymanPainter (Feb 26, 2014)

Have you thought about staining the new doors to match what was on the old doors, sand it all down, then give the old doors a clean in oxylic acid?

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## lilpaintchic (Jul 9, 2014)

journeymanPainter said:


> Have you thought about staining the new doors to match what was on the old doors, sand it all down, then give the old doors a clean in oxylic acid?
> 
> Sent from my SM-A520W using Tapatalk


Good to hear from ya jp, it's been a while!


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## journeymanPainter (Feb 26, 2014)

lilpaintchic said:


> Good to hear from ya jp, it's been a while!


SO BUSY.

Been painting full-time, and getting 2-3 shifts a week at the docks.
Just popped in to see what I've been missing

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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

journeymanPainter said:


> Have you thought about staining the new doors to match what was on the old doors, sand it all down, then give the old doors a clean in oxylic acid?
> 
> Sent from my SM-A520W using Tapatalk


Actually, no. I've not done anything with that particular process. What does it do - amber the wood?


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## journeymanPainter (Feb 26, 2014)

RH said:


> Actually, no. I've not done anything with that particular process. What does it do - amber the wood?


In my opinion it would help create a colour consistency. 
Your still going to run into other issues, plus this process may take much longer than the other suggestions.

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## ridesarize (Jun 19, 2012)

I saw a yt video where a painter shows his stain match process. Uses either a yellow dye stain for base coat (oak), or an orange dye base coat for richer or browner matches. 

What about a richer or more amber base coat?

I think your techniques and results are great anyways.


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## Sn0man (Sep 15, 2017)

Another thing you can do is hit the wood with a (very) reduced dye first just to give the wood a bit of colour without adding any solids to interfere with your stain. Alternatively a couple of drops of yellow/orange dye in your WB topcoat will give it the same ambering effect you'd get from a solvent lacquer.


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