LESLIE: Harry is calling in from North Carolina with a staining question. What can we do for you?
HARRY: Yes, I’ve built a surround around my fireplace and I used oak and pine.
TOM: OK. Alright.
HARRY: And I want to make it all look the same and I’m having a real tough time staining it.
LESLIE: Yeah.
TOM: Yeah, because you’ve got one wood that’s very soft and one wood that’s very dense.
HARRY: Right.
LESLIE: So the absorption rate, it’s very different.
TOM: What kind of stain do you want on this, Harry; a light one or a dark one?
HARRY: In between. (Leslie chuckles)
TOM: In between. Hmm. Have you tried – you’re going to have to do a little experimenting here. I would take some scrap pine and I would put a coat of sanding sealer on it. You know what sanding sealer is?
HARRY: No, I sure don’t.
TOM: OK, it’s like a very thin finish.
HARRY: OK.
TOM: Put sanding sealer on it. You can go buy a pint and test this out. After it dries, put the stain on top of that and then see if that more closely matches the color of the oak.
HARRY: OK.
TOM: And what the sanding sealer is going to do is it’s going to slow down the absorption and get more of the stain to sit on top and that might help it look a little bit different.
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