Wiping Stain vs Penetrating Stain – Best Stain Comparison

By keeping the wood surface from fading, stains can help maintain the original colour of your furniture, panelling, or floor. But with so many stain kinds available, it might be difficult to pick between wiping stain and penetrating stain for your woodworking project.

Wiping stain is a better option for your woodworking project since it can be used on a range of wood and non-wood surfaces while penetrating stain is great for interior, raw wood surfaces. Let’s examine penetrating stain vs. wiping stain in more depth.

What Is Wiping Stain?

When it comes to having a thick-bodied stain that can tone wood to the appropriate shade without penetrating it, wiping stain is quite similar to gel stain. Because wiping stain doesn’t fully permeate the wood, it is more resistant to blotting than penetrating stain.

Additionally, you may alter the colour of the wood tone on previously treated wood by rubbing stain over it rather than removing the original finish. The main benefit of wiping stain is that it gives you far more control over the stain’s colour.

What is Penetrating Stain?

A classic oil-based wood stain that penetrates is often designed to get within the pores of wood surfaces. The stain can enhance the wood’s inherent beauty by brightening the colour of the wood through absorption into the material.

Three main situations call for the usage of this stain:

• Wood surfaces inside.
• surface of unfinished wood.
• surfaces of finished wood that have been removed before.

The finest stains for unprocessed hardwoods including walnut, oak, mahogany, and ash tend to be penetrating stains.

Penetrating Stain vs Wiping Stain Product Overviews

Even while wood might be beautiful in its natural condition, that colour may not go with the rest of your home’s decor. A little wood stain may improve the appearance and bring it closer to the general design and décor of your home.

In this section, wiping stain and penetrating stain, two of the most common types of wood stains, are compared side by side. Discover which of the two options could be the most suitable for your project by reading on.

Effortless Use

Penetrating stains and wiping stains both support various application techniques.

Wiping stain can be liberally applied to a surface using a brush, spray, or lint-free cloth until the area is thoroughly saturated.

After letting it sit for between five and fifteen minutes, remove any extra with a soft towel.

For a penetrating stain, you can use a cloth, brush, pad, roller, or sprayer. However, you should wait less time—between 2 and 5 minutes—before cleaning up the extra stain with a cloth.

Wiping stains, which are heavier and require more time to dry than penetrating stains, have lengthier wait times between application and wiping.

However, these stains should be removed with a delicate cloth by wiping them first across and then inside the wood grain.

If you want a darker hue, you must add another coat of stain for both types of stain after the initial layer has dried. For best results, be sure to always apply the product with the grain of the wood.

Penetrating stain often has a lighter formula than wiping stain, although both allow for simple application. Wiping stain has a rich, thick recipe.

The result is a draw.

Versatility

Wiping stains, as was already noted, have a thicker substance that resembles a gel stain. With only one application, this rich formulation enables great colour control to produce a surface that is rich and consistent in colour.

Without destroying the original finish, wiping stains can be applied to a brand-new surface or on top of previously treated wood. If you want to change or modify the wood tone, you have additional options thanks to this attribute.

Wiping stain may also be used as a traditional wood stain on fresh wood and as a graining glaze for different kinds of wood. This makes it much simpler to mix and combine colours to get the desired tint.

Wiping stain is the winner, in this case.

Application Spectrum

Only interior wood surfaces that are untreated or that have had a prior finish scraped off are eligible for penetrating stains.

On the other side, there are often more applications for wiping stains. Both unfinished and finished wood surfaces as well as non-wood surfaces like fibreglass, metal, and composition surfaces can be treated with it.

You may use a wiping stain to remove an existing finish first, or you can just put it on top of the existing finish.

In conclusion, wiping stains is more flexible. It triumphs.

Painting Brand-New Wood Surfaces

With a wiping stain, you can better manage the stain colour while staining a fresh wood surface. Because of the surface’s rough roughness, the stain sticks to it more effectively. Most of the time, one colour is adequate since it produces a superior gloss on the surface.

With a wiping stain, it is considerably simpler to obtain a deeper hue if that is what you desire. Just give the first coat a few hours to thoroughly dry before adding another. If you want a darker colour, be sure to use more wiping stain than usual.

For such a strong application, you should use a brush, ideally one with softer white china bristles that won’t leave brush traces on the surface.

On the other hand, light applications can be made with a rag. If the cloth is unable to thoroughly stain all of the crevices, you might still need to use a brush.

Penetrating stains are more likely produce develop blotching and suction spots because they seep into the wood, which makes colour management difficult.

The winner is stain-wiping, in our opinion.

Staining Woodwork That Has Already Been Stained.

All you need to do to apply a wiping stain to previously stained furniture is set up the surface for re-toning.

You won’t have to remove the old finish for this job. The colour can only become darker in this case; it cannot change from light to dark. By applying the stain, you are creating a new layer of colour that is simply darker and not lighter.

To use a penetrating stain, you must first remove the previous finish. This implies that when the penetrating stain is present, you have more work to perform.

Conclusion: Wiping a stain wins.

Conclusion: Penetrating vs. Wiping Stains

Which is better for removing stains—wiping or penetrating? Here, you must take the purpose of your project into account to choose between wiping stain and penetrating stain as the ideal stain. In this instance, all you need to do is review the side-by-side comparison in this article and choose based on the demands of your project.

Verdict on Penetrating Stains

In general, penetrating stain works best on interior wood surfaces that have had their prior finish removed or that are unpainted.

When staining unfinished hardwoods like walnut, oak, mahogany, and ash, use penetrating stain.

Wiping Stain Conclusion

Wiping stain, on the other hand, may be applied to a variety of surfaces, including untreated wood, wood that has already been finished, metal, composite surfaces, and fibreglass.

On jobs involving woods like maple, cherry, pine, poplar, and birch, wiping stain is ideal.

If you want to refinish pine furniture, a pine deck, or pine flooring, go to this advice on the best pine stains.

In any event, make careful to test the stains on a discrete area of the object you want to stain before using them extensively. By making sure you have the right stain colours for your woodworking job, this method will help you prevent unpleasant surprises.