Pressure Box Lid Staining

Knowing that I wanted to have the inside of the lid stained a different color than the outside, I realized that this presented a challenge regarding the staining of the inside edges of the scrollwork.

Trying to figure out how best to accomplish this two-color arrangement without it turning into messy stain bleeds on the inside surfaces, I decided on a certain order of steps I would take…

First I stained the inside surface with several coats of the lighter (pecan) colored stain, then after that was dry, I sanded and shellacked the inside surface several times. The shellac would not only serve to help keep the lid seams airtight, but also to discourage the darker stain from bleeding into the lighter finish - I hoped…

Next, I prepared to stain the scrollwork edges by applying some "Frog Tape" on the inside of the scrollwork area, making sure there were no wrinkles in the tape and rubbing it down to ensure good adhesion to all the thin surface areas around the scrollwork:

Then, I spent about 45 minutes with a tiny brush and gave all the interior scrollwork edges a couple of coats of the darker (red mahogany) stain.

As soon as this was done, I continued with the stain over all the exterior surfaces.

When I pulled the Frog Tape away, I felt lucky that none of the dark stain had bled through onto the inside surface. There was a thin line of the darker stain where the strips of masking tape had overlapped, but it was easily wiped from the shellacked surface with a little bit of mineral spirits.

Now that that's done, I can shellac the outer surface, and then fit the window to the lid...

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