Faux Oak Grain Pattern

Now, Establishing a realistic or believable oak grain pattern is the critical point to achieving success. It does not or should not (in my humble opinion) need to be over the top or to a point that it actually screams at you "look at me". It should be subtle and blend in with its surroundings. The unfortunate part about some of the graining situations is if it is done correctly no one should know that it has been painted. How sad is that? Kind of funny actually.

So, how to make the grain pattern. There are tools specifically designed to make this a very simple process i.e. the grain rocker (see tools in the right column). It produces a nice pattern that pulls off the idea of oak. However, to me it has some draw backs. Mainly it can get a little repetitive and begin to look contrived. I like to use it very sparingly. I like to actually use a flat brush and paint in the grain by hand creating a unique pattern on every board again taping off each board. This does require some research in different looks of the oak from real oak to mimic and does take more time, but the finished product is more believable (that.. no one .. will notice. lol)

Adding the figure grain on a project is the most time consuming part of the job. Everything else is pretty efficient and is mostly just dialing in the color.

To see a detail of the glaze and grain pattern GO HERE