Wipe-on remains the most popular technique for staining wood, but depending on what kind of results you’re going for, it’s not always an ideal choice. When it comes to pine, a little extra care goes a long way to produce an even stain so you don’t end up with a blotchy look or the “grain reversal” effect, wherein the more porous parts of the pine soak up more stain.
Woodworking pros often recommend a few key steps to getting a great result, including stabilizing loose knots with epoxy, sanding the whole surface thoroughly with a block, “raising the grain” with a damp sponge and applying two coats of water-based conditioner prior to water-based dye. Finally, the surface is sealed with shellac and glazed if a little extra depth is desired.
There’s an easier way – it just requires some practice. As long as you don’t mind a slight reduction in the contrast of the grain in the finished product, the spray/no wipe stain technique can provide rich, even results with an even background coloring, bringing the color of the sapwood closer to that of the heartwood.
Bob Flexner, author of “Understanding Wood Finishing” and “Flexner on Finishing,” lays out the process at Woodshop News, including proper technique and troubleshooting. In a nutshell, you can thin any stain to make it sprayable, use a spray gun for optimal coverage and keep the spray pattern as consistent as you can, being extra careful with overlaps.
You can also see an example of how it’s done in the video above.
Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones. Case in point: the Wing Shelving System by Estúdio Parrado, a modular series that makes use of perforated pine planks and clever metal brackets for easy customization. The CNC-cut holes in the shelves let you attach the brackets in all sorts of configurations so they can be mounted to the wall and connected to each other in any arrangement you like. No drilling, no cutting, no fussing around with overly complicated parts.
The use of perforated pine in this product is brilliant, and we love that they left it raw so its natural beauty can shine.
“The Wing Shelf was designed to be gently integrated to the interiors. Taking advantage of modularity, its pieces form subtle and dynamic connections, generating an infinity of geometric compositions. Its perforated base allows the variation of the brackets position, which makes each choice a unique creation.”
“The shelf’s design aims to provide to the users a customization experience by giving them the possibility of creating their own compositions. Adding this to the fact that the piece was built in a very simple and transparent constructive system where the user can assemble the structure himself and chose the brackets positions, we may establish once more a connection between user and product, in a way he becomes an essential part of the process.”
The winner of an A’ Design Award, the Wing Shelving System can be purchased on the Estúdio Parrado website. It’s also easy to imagine coming up with a similar DIY design that nixes the metal in favor of using all wood, though the shape of the brackets is especially pleasing here, and adds a lot to the final look.
A modern three-story treehouse weaves through Graven Woodland Gardens in Arkansas, seemingly hovering in the air. Owned by the University of Arkansas and built by American architecture firm Modus Studio, the Evans Tree House looks down onto a children’s garden designed to encourage kids to interact with nature. It’s made of 113 ribs – ten of them steel, the rest made of heat-treated pine.
“The steel ribs and spine act as a skeleton, a vertical framework, connecting the top and bottom spines and floor plates to the six pair of columns,” the architects told Dezeen. “Steel ribs follow the same form created by the wood ribs to help conceal the structural framework of the treehouse and further the goal of creating a mysterious figure in the woods.”
“It is intended to camouflage itself into the landscape and be of the ecology of the place – organic, yet alive and mysterious in nature, purposefully inspiring children’s imaginations about the forest.”
Its shape is certainly suggestive of an enormous creature, and as visitors walk around on the ground and look up at it from below, it almost seems to transform and change shapes, looking different from every perspective. An elevated walkway connects the treehouse to an adjacent boardwalk. Inside, openings offer views of the forest, while mesh-covered play areas let kids climb around safely.
This creative project is a cool example of how pine can be used in outdoor applications, and we especially love the unusual shape the wood takes to give the treehouse its signature profile.
One of the hottest new trends in architecture has actually been around for centuries, and it could be a key strategy for making wooden structures more fire resistant. “Shou sugi ban” roughly translates to “burnt cedar board” in Japanese, and it was developed by carpenters seeking a unique finish that would improve the durability of Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica).
Hillside Designworks used Eastern White Pine boards to create the barn door on a woodshed, above, burning them with a weed torch and finishing them with linseed oil.
Commonplace in Japan since the 1700s or possibly even earlier, the technique traditionally involves strapping boards together and creating a fire in between them, which is allowed to burn just long enough to char the surface of the boards before it’s extinguished with water, buffed with a wire brush and sealed with a plant-based oil like tung. This produces a hard shell on the wood that naturally protects the rest of the board.
These days, the same effect is typically accomplished with a blowtorch, especially in the United States and Europe where it’s exploded in popularity thanks to its dramatic look and eco-friendly nature. The process chars the wood to varying degrees, depending on the desired outcome, ranging from a light toasting to a blackened “alligator skin” texture. A darker char provides the greatest benefits. Interestingly, the technique can be used on all kinds of wood, including Eastern White Pine.
When we wrote about this previously, lots of our readers wondered how such a process could possibly make wood more resistant to water, insect damage and especially fire. Nakamoto Forestry, a Japanese company with a shop in Portland, Oregon, inadvertently tested out the latter when last year’s Tubbs Fire burned around a house clad in its shou sugi ban siding just outside of Calistoga, California. The fire came right up to the side of the house, but the only damage it sustained was melting of the resin the company used on the back sides of the planks to hold and fill loose knots. They’e explained a little bit of the science behind how this works:
The two main components in softwood lumber are carbohydrates, like cellulose and hemicellulose, which make up 65-90% of the non-water mass, and lignin, which makes up the other 10-35%. Cellulose is made of a linked chain of glucose molecules, or sugar. Hemicellulose is also made of sugar, but in addition to glucose, it’s made with a range of different polysaccharides. Lignin doesn’t contain any sugars and is the main rigid, structural component of wood. The basic premise of heat-treated wood longevity is that the carbohydrate portion is burned off, leaving the structural lignin, and therefore depriving fungi and wood-eating insects of what they metabolize to survive.
In addition to being insect and microbe food (as well as hygroscopic), those carbohydrates are also fuel for fire to consume. In order for wood to ignite, its temperature must be high enough that pyrolysis takes place and the chemical reactions of combustion start. Ignitability of wood is dependent on the thermal properties of the species, moisture content and dimension of the piece, and the way heat is applied to the material.
The factors affecting the ignition of wood are generally well known: wet wood is more difficult to ignite than dry, thin kindling ignites more easily than thick logs, and softwood species ignite at a lower temperature than hardwood. Less common knowledge is that wood burns in stages. Cellulose is the first component of wood to ignite and it burns away quickly, leaving mostly lignin and other sugars behind, which become charcoal. Charcoal is the last component of wood to burn, as it requires higher temperatures than cellulose to ignite. This is the key to why shou sugi ban is naturally flame resistant: the cellulose has already been burned away, leaving a surface that requires much more extreme heat than non-heat-treated cypress to ignite.
Shou sugi ban is particularly well-suited for cedar and cypress, but produces similar effects on other woods as well (including pine!), though it becomes a bit of a misnomer in this case and proponents of the technique prefer to use names like “shou piney ban” to differentiate it. Many architects are beginning to experiment with using charred pine as a durable exterior siding, like the Charred Cabin by Del Rio Arquitectos Asociados pictured at the top of this page. Since the process can be quite time consuming for builders, some lumber providers have begun offering pre-charred siding to consumers.
Particularly in the American West, designing architecture that can withstand the danger of frequent wildfires has become a greater concern. It will be interesting to see how architects continue to experiment with this material, and whether it could play into new fire resistance strategies in the near future. If you test it out with pine, please be sure to let us know!
Finding creative ways to make the most of small spaces is a perpetual architectural puzzle, one that must adapt along with the times as our needs and expectations change. One clever contemporary solution is the room-within-a-room, in which a compact multipurpose volume is placed within a larger space. Not only does it eliminate the need to modify the existing space with interior walls, which can make it feel smaller and darker, it offers a variety of functions and more privacy than the average open-plan studio apartment.
Corine Keus Architect demonstrates how that can be done with a series of handcrafted studios designed for traveling directors, actors and artists-in-residence at the Netherlands National Theater. Made almost entirely of pine, the volumes have been inserted into six self-contained spaces within the historical building, which was built in 1916. Built in place and easy to deconstruct, these new studio volumes can be removed almost effortlessly when they’re no longer needed, barely leaving at trace in their wake.
The beautiful simplicity of the pine plywood, with its clean lines and unadorned planes, contrasts with the historic architecture and adds warmth, texture and pattern to each of the white rooms. The studio volumes contain all necessary amenities, including kitchenettes, a sleeping platform, closets and lots of additional storage. The only other furniture required is a table and chairs for dining and working, and clutter is easily contained within all those cabinets.
This project is packed with inspiration for small space design, and also shows how a material as humble and simple as plywood can make a big impact. It’s easy to see how cold and impersonal these rooms might have felt with just a bit of furniture and a built-in kitchenette. Instead, the result is cozy and one of a kind.
We’ve seen some seriously cool pine architecture (and even furniture!) that’s either painted black for a striking modern appearance or intentionally, carefully charred with a technique like “shou sugi ban” to make it stronger and more resistant to moisture, mold, insects and even fire. While some people might find black architecture creepy, others find it pleasingly graphic and dramatic. A new project by architect Felipe Lagos uses the former approach for a sleek holiday refuge designed for an extreme climate.
Casa R is a compact vacation home set in a steep ravine in the town of Vilches, Chile, halfway up the Andes mountain range. Remote and private, the parcel enjoys beautiful views and access to a variety of nearby nature reserves and national parks. It’s a prime location for summer fun, but for much of the year, damp and cold weather conditions present a challenge. The house had to be welcoming and comfortable while also respecting the sensitive nature of the building site.
The architects designed the home as a narrow volume that slots into the available building space without requiring any trees to be cut down. All of the components were prefabricated offsite and assembled as a series of modules for both of the two floors, including the woodshed and access area, kitchenette, bathroom and terraces on the ground floor and the master bedroom, living room and work desk on the second level.
The roof – steeply sloped to allow snow to slide right off in winter – is black steel, which pairs beautifully with the pine wood used inside and out. Some of that pine is finished with black copper-based Carbolíneo Química Universal, a protective liquid that gives it its striking hue. For the interiors, grooved pine plywood brings warmth to the space in its raw, unfinished state. The contrast of the black materials and the beauty of the pale pine is always a strong aesthetic choice, providing contrast and keeping the house from feeling too dark and dour.
What do you think – would you live in a black painted house?
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