Q: I am refinishing our floor. I sanded several times, cleaned, stained. Found several places stain did not take at all. I have done this floor before and several others in our other homes with none of this. Please give me a clue why the wood stain did not take.
A: My guess is you did not remove all the old finish. It can be especially difficult when removing water born coatings. Because they are so light in colour, if you skim over it but don’t totally remove all traces it is difficult to see the finish that is left. It looks like bare wood until you apply stain. Or something happened in your preparation so that the spots where the stain did not ‘take’ is sanded significantly smoother than the surrounding floor. Sometimes it is helpful to ‘water pop’ the wood first, which simply means wetting the floor surface, letting it completely dry before applying the stain. This opens the surface grain, allowing deeper, more even stain penetration. You have to be sure not to miss any spots with water and also not to scuff your feet when applying the stain, lest you close up the grain in those spots. Tricky work for sure.
Related Questions
Staining Wood Floor a Bold ColorQ: I would like to stain my hardwood oak floors to a very non-traditional, bold color. For example: indigo, blue, or blood red. Minwax makes some water based stains in those colors, are those advisable for the floor? They can be seen here: http://www.minwax.com/wood-products/stains/minwax-water-based-wood-stain#Colors They will be coated with oil…
Staining mapleI have a hardwood floor that looks like a gym floor. It is maple. I would like to stain it darker, however I've been told that staining this maple floor won't work and won't turn out?
Staining wood fillerI am a first time home remodeler and have run into the problem of staining nail holes filled with wood putty. I have used the following products with poor results: ********** "Stainable" Wood Filler, ******* Wood Dough, and ********** Wood Filler. Regardless of sanding and multiple coats of stain the…
Dark grey floor stainWe are looking at purchasing an engineered hardwood floor for our kitchen - maple / graphite dark grey. I was told by a someone that dark grey stains don't wear as well as they don't penetrate as deep as other "lighter" stains. Is this true?
Bleeding stainI recently sanded my white oak floors and used a Duraseal quick dry stain. After wiping the floor diligently and leaving it dry for 3 hrs., I returned to apply the first coat of waterborne finish. There was some bleeding of stain between boards which I wiped before applying finish.…