General Finishes Water Based Wood Stain, 1 Pint, Provincial

This stain is pricey but worth it-- such a pleasure to work with. As a carpenter I've used a lot of oil based stuff through the years. This water based stain is much quicker for cleaning brushes. It also stirs quickly. The color is as rich as a traditional stain. Also easy on your nose as the smell is neutral and fume-free. Just remember it is stain only. It will need a couple finish coats to achieve a protective layer as well as sheen. The black cherry color achieves the feel of an aging ship or a colonial home with aged pine.

Great product and it helped get my furniture to the finish I was looking for. Was redoing some nightstands and wanted a lighter natural wood color. The natural wood I sanded the furniture down to was pretty light but I didn’t want that varnish to make it too dark. Once I diluted it (per the instructions) and got the application technique down it worked great. I ended up dipping a miracle cloth into the mixture and then wiping right after… that gave me the best result. I lightened it up just enough so that when I applied varnish it was the perfect shade.

I used this stain on my new mantle, built by my husband. I wanted something dark in color that would also provide for color variance so as not to look too perfect or uniform (We were going for the rustic, re-purposed beam look). I applied to the wood using a rag and was immediately happy with the results! As opposed to other stains where multiple coats are needed, we only had to do 1 coat. If you wanted a very dark and uniform color throughout, two coats should do the trick. Since this stain is water based, I then took a damp rag and ran it over some places on the mantle. This thinned the stain and provided the most perfect (and purposely in-perfect!) color variation. My husband and I do a lot of DIY projects, and thus try out many products along the way. I can confidently say this is one of the easiest stains we have ever used. It allowed us to really be in control, which is something I certainly look for in a product like this. The stain itself comes out matte, so if you're looking for a finish with some sheen, you would want to purchase a topcoat of sorts. Additionally, we used hardly ANY product! We have more than enough left over to stain the ceiling beams we're building to match....and then some. A little of this stuff seriously goes a long way.

Trust me, I am not very knowledgeable about staining and finishing wood, but this stuff really made me look good. I tried several products on the underside to see if they had that dark rich walnut color I wanted and this was the clear winner. Use it liberally and be patient, don’t try to do it all in one day. Use some good quality all cotton rags to wipe off the excess and whatever you do, don’t wait too long and let it dry! Get the excess off before it dries or you won’t like it. I put two coats on liberally and wiped as soon as I got to the other end. After a day of drying I used General finishes Satin Poly on it and the results made it look like I actually knew what I was doing. Great product. Will buy again and again. So glad they have it on Amazon because my Lowe’s and Home Depot didn’t.

Horrible to work with - we followed the instructions, watched all the videos, did everything we were supposed to do and the results are absolutely terrible. This is not our first attempt at staining either, so we know what we are doing. The stain was blotchy, much darker than the photos, and nearly impossible to keep a wet edge - it dries so quickly and is very hard to work with. Even after multiple coats, it looks awful. This was literally $50 down the drain. Luckily we can return the top coat - will be painting instead.

I've used many General Finishes products for various furniture items as well as a project that involved refinishing my staircase and have been very impressed with the results, especially given the fact I don't know what I'm doing and learn everything from the GF videos on their website and YouTube channel. Anyway, I used the graphite wood dye for an "off-label" use - restoring the color to my photobleached landscaping boulders in my backyard. I have about 30 large boulders the size of small boulders that receive direct sunlight for most of the day and over the years have almost bleached out to a very light gray tone. I wanted to restore some of the original darker color and add some more depth to the boulders and thought the General Finishes Wood Stain in Graphite might work - and it worked brilliantly! I'm very happy with the result and delighted with this product.

Functionality: Better product with ease of use covers well

Excellent product. Used it to stain my desktop.