THE TREE

The tree's soft sorghum

- 1 cod preloud

- 2 cod stain

- 1 cod clear

The quality of the log includes 4 codes

This is always to be done home painting

Staining
Staining should be done as per manufactures specifications.  There are good stain suppliers and bad ones.  Make sure the stain being used is one of the ones who have large ads in Log Home Living as they are more reputable.  Also, talk to your contractor about the application, how many coats and what is the maintenance procedure.  Do not buy a story of how a stain will last 7-10 years with one application.  That would be that fast talking salesman we talked about earlier.

Complete job
Is the contractor going to remove your leaders, lights and phone cables?  Or just stain on or around them?  ASK.  Will they put these back?  Do they tape off everything where you don’t want stain?  ASK.  Do they haul off the debris?  When comparing contracts, look at any other things missing from the cheapest guy so that you can compare apples to apples.

wood stain consists of colorants dissolved and/or suspended in a 'vehicle' or solvent. Vehicle is the preferred term, as the contents of a stain may not be truly 'dissolved' in the vehicle, but rather 'suspended', and thus the vehicle may not be a true 'solvent'. The vehicle often may be water, alcohol, a petroleum distillate, or a finishing agent such as (shellac, lacquer, varnish, polyurethane, and etc.). Colored or 'stained' finishes do not typically deeply penetrate the pores of the wood and may largely disappear when the finish deteriorates or is removed.

Pigments and/or dyes are largely used as colorants in most stains. The difference between the two is in the solubility and in the size of the particles. While dyes are molecules that dissolve into the vehicle, pigments are larger than molecules and are temporarily suspended in the vehicle, usually settling out over time. Stains with primarily dye content are said to be 'transparent', while stains with more pigment in them are said to be 'solid' (opaque); some stains may be called 'semi-solid' or 'semi-transparent', and these may be interchangeable terms, and the relative transparency or opaqueness may fall somewhere between the two extremes. Typically, dyes will color very fine-grained woods (such as cherry or maple) while pigments will not color woods such as these as well. Fine-grained woods generally have pores that are too small for the pigments to settle into. As a result, usually pigment-containing stains will also include a small amount of a 'binder' which helps to adhere the pigments to the wood. A common binder would be a drying oil such as linseed oil.

Most commercial stains contain both dyes and pigments, though often in varying colors and ratios (to each other) depending on the desired coloring effect. Additionally, to some extent, the degree to which a stain will color a particular wood may be dependent on the length of time they are left on the wood, with longer exposure times accomplishing deeper coloration. Typically a 'transparent' stain will accentuate the wood grain (as it is transparent), while a more 'solid' stain will tend to obscure the wood grain (as it is more opaque, akin to what we would usually call 'paint'). Pigments, regardless of the suspension agent, will not give much color to very dense woods but will deeply color woods with large pores (e.g. pine).

Gel stains are a late 20th century innovation in stain manufacturing, in that they are high-viscosity liquids and do not 'flow'. This property allows more control during application, particularly when the wood is in a vertical position, which can often cause traditional liquid stains to run, drip, or pool. Gel stains often have limited penetrating ability, as they are thixotropic (a liquid that nevertheless does not 'flow')

Siding stain

Siding stain is one variety of wood stain with very high viscosity (others can be quite thin). Effectively, siding stains are paints that do not cover as well and do not form a hard film. They are designed to penetrate better and contain binders that are softer and more flexible, allowing them to last longer than harder, more brittle paints. Siding stain protects against solar radiation especially UV radiation, water, fungus including mildew, and insects. Different siding stains are distinguished by the appearance they impart to wood. Certain solvent-based or oil-based siding stains contain small amounts of paraffin wax, which cannot be painted over, although re-staining is still possible.