Minwax 660910000 Gel Stain, Quart, Coffee

I used this to stain my boring builder grade honey oak colored kitchen cabinets. Initially I found it difficult to work with, but I had never used gel stain before so I just had to learn to work with it. I cleaned the cabinets with TSP, then applied two coats of this stain and finished with Minwax Poly-Acrylic Top Coat in Satin finish. The first coat of stain I began to wonder if I had made a humongous mistake, but by the time I got the second coat on, it filled in all the random spots and looked really good. The stain does scratch off easily, so I think using a top coat is very important. Now that mine are sealed with several layers of the poly-acrylic I haven't had any issues with the stain coming off. This stain is very dark, anything beyond 2 coats may look black. I've had several people say my cabinets are black from pictures, but it is clear in the home that they are just dark brown. I needed 2 of these containers for 2 coats on the outside/inside cabinet doors, the cabinet trim edges, and the cabinet kick plates as well as the cabinet sides. I discovered that while my doors were solid wood, the sides of the cabinet boxes were veneer, but with this stain you can't tell they aren't solid high end wood. This is a great product!

This gel coat is fantastic. No need to sand off finish just paint right over, but its recommended to be smooth atleast first! Also great on bear wood. Easy to work with, doesnt drip too much, pleasant smell, dries pretty quick, nice medium gloss finish, and tough enough to stand up to general wear and tear. This is my go to for many house projects now.

I can't say enough good things about this stain. Super easy to apply and it looks great! I wanted something thicker to go over existing stain and polyurethane. Even though it is thicker than paint, when it dries you can still see the wood grain. I just cleaned the existing wood with a 50/50 mixture of water and denatured alcohol, then lightly scuffed it up with some 220 grit sandpaper. I must say it's darker than I thought it would be, but I got a couple good layers on it. I LOVE how dark it is and how it will look with our new flooring. Uploaded is a digital version of what the flooring will look like. Also before and after pictures.

Package arrived inside the can was bent. Thank God it didn't open. Apparently the US mail isn't very careful with Amazon packages. The can was almost bent in half. I can't believe it didn't open. Anyway, it's still usable. I gave it for stars because I really love the gel stain. It works great, especially on pine gives a really, really nice stain pattern

I bought a used dresser in great shape but it had a few large spots where the stain had completely come off. I tried to match the stain in those spots to the rest of the dresser but even though it was the same color you could still see the spots. I really didn't want to sand the whole thing and start over so I decided to try the gel stain and it worked great. I applied the gel stain right over the top of the existing stain on the entire dresser. It totally covered up the spots and looks great. It is thicker than a normal stain so you dont see as much of the wood grain but you can still see some, especially if you wipe it off quickly. It has a strong smell so make sure to be in a ventilated area. This stain was a little more expensive but considering the time it saved me not having to sand first, I think it was well worth it.