Finishing wooden trim of glass window in door

[city17]

Hi all, recently we had some windows replaced, and for the front door they put on some new trim around the glass. However, they left it unfinished and the colour doesn't match the original material of the door.

What would you recommend to finish this bit of trim with so it gets to about the same colour as the rest of the door? The trim is some kind of hardwood, and it was originally painted white, but they sanded that down (still can see a few bits of paint in the pores of the wood).

I have some linseed oil based hard wax oil (Kreidezeit) and some Osmo hard wax oil, but those won't really work in this situation I don't think.

Any advice much appreciated!

 

[Reffc]

Looks like Red Meranti and I may be wrong but the door looks like a quality Sapele That's pretty poor work, rushed with poor mitres and finishing. If it were mine, I'd remove what they'd done, buy some Sapele which won't be the same batch but would be a better match and finish it in a harwaxoil if wanting a more (traditional?) oil finish or apply two coats of a hard wearing PU finish after dry jointing before pinning/bonding into place. More to the point, I'd complain about the standard of their work and demand a partial refund to allow you to re-finish the job properly.

 

[city17]

Thanks @Reffc . It wasn't very neatly done, but it's actually at my parents house and they're not that fussy about these things, so I doubt they'd want to remove it again. If it were at my own house I'd not be that happy about it.

Given the Red Meranti (or similar?) wood, do you have any suggestions to make that a better match for the rest of the door? Doesn't have to be the same exact colour, just something that works well with it.

The front door is probably about 60 years old.

 

[Reffc]

If leaving the wood the only way is to experiment on a small patch of the mitred frames using wood stain or dye, then after a suitable drying period, I'd hardwaxoil the frames masking the glass panels off. You'll need 3 coats for exterior use for durability. Osmo should be fine but if worried about weather proofing a Danish oil containing resin hardeners might be ok. I use a Danish oil for some of my gun stocks and it's held up to wet weather very well. They need a good sanding before you think about finishing them though! Look to a light stain with a reddish tint otherwise it'll come out very dark on Meranti. A light tan wityh a reddish tint might work but don't expect a close match. The frames will come out darker than the sapele once finished. Either that or simply paint them after undercoating and maybe use a striking contrast as a feature?

 

[niall Y]

Ditto using some sort of stain. Something like Teak should push it more toward an orange hue. As to finish - then whatever you have to hand that will give the semi-gloss look.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I suspect if you put an oil based varnish on the new parts the colour will move a lot closer to the existing already finished sections. Because of the linseed oil in such varnish it has a darkening effect and to bring out amber elements on whatever is underneath, whether that's bare wood or the base wood colour has been modified by dye, stain, etc. That raw pink colour of freshly cut wood will soon darken anyway because of the effects of UV rays and oxidation and that may be all you need.

If you've got an offcut or two I'd try just putting a couple of coats clear oil varnish on a patch in the first place to see what colour change happens, and go from there regarding additional colouring if you think it's required. Slainte.

 

[eribaMotters]

Brown shoe polish on an offcut would be worth a try.

Colin

 

[city17]

Thanks all, I'll try to get hold of some Red Meranti to test a few options and see if a stain is required. Don't have any offcuts of the actual trim unfortunately, but it should give a good indication.

Didn't mention it, but this is on the internal side of the front door, so weather proofing is not really required.

 

[city17]

Quick update on how it turned out:

I handplaned the trim to get rid of the remaining white paint in the pores, which had the additional benefit of revealing a more beautiful and darker tone of the wood. I then finished it with some Kreidezeit hard wax oil, which darkened it even more.

Final result is pretty good in terms of color I think, matches quite well with the door. It's a little less red in real life than in the photo.

Have to say the original tradesman should've done a better job. Because it was originally painted white from the factory, they used lower quality wood where they sealed defects with some brown filler.

That doesn't really matter if it's painted over, but after sanding and planing those were revealed, which was a bit of a shame (you can see one all the way at the top in the photo).