Carpentry and Woodworking - Polyurethane and stain

A friend of mine built a table recently and he would like to know if you can put stain on top of polyurethane and then polyurethane on top of that again?

no. stain is meant to soak into the wood grains. Since polyurethane seals the wood grains and is a clear coating over the wood, stain would simply sit on the surface and wipe right off. Even if you left it to dry, when you brush on the polyurethane, the solvent in the finish would dissolve the stain making a big smeary mess.

If you want to put something over the top of an existing finish, you might try Minwax Polyshades which is stain and polyurethane combined. But I suspect that this might also create a smeary mess, with uneven brush strokes on top of your current finish.

I assume you're trying to change the color of the wood? I would use a tinted polyurathane instead, you're not going to get good results with stain over poly.

I've applied gel stains over poly before, but not before sanding alot of the poly off first. Polyshades is basically a tinted Polyurethane, just with Minwax's fancy name, and would be a good choice. If the table was stained before, you have to take it's color in consideration when adding new stain. You might end up with a color somewhere between the original color, and the newly applied color.

Stain rarely takes over stain and definetly not over poly. If you need to change the color the only option [other than stripping] is to use tinted poly. It may take multiple coats and care must be used to get even coats. It would then need a coat of untinted poly to protect the color - otherwise you could eventually wear through the color.

Thank you for the info. He just made a drafting table and wanted it to be a little darker after he had already applied the poly, but now he knows what he has to do, thanx to you guys again :)

Can this same thing be done to kitchen cabinets over veneer that has been stained and poly.???????

Yes. In this case you might want to only try this method. Veneer is thin and you can very easily sand right through it if you're not careful.