After some testing I determined to acheive the color stain I want, I need to leave the stain on for almost 5 minutes exactly. When staining an entire floor, how can I be sure that all the stain is wiped after 5 minutes? I.e. it's easy to keep track of time on a couple of planks in my shop. But the floor is too large to keep track of the whole thing.

Even though my floors are oak, I will be using wood conditioner (in my tests it seemed to help smooth things out a little).

But should I do only small strips at a time? If so, I'm concerned that each strip will vary in color. But then again if I apply stain to the whole floor and have someone trailing behind me to wipe, they probably won't be able to reach over the stained portions enough to wipe. And how do you keep track of how long the stain has been on the floor in such a large area. Or, am I over-thinking the whole thing?

None of the articles and instructions I've read actually discuss this detail for staining.

Thanks!

Most pros use diffrent methods of floor prep to achive a desired penetration of stain. The finer you sand the floor the lighter the stain will be, becuse you are essentially closing the pores of the wood up preventing it from absorbing the stain. If you want a darker richer color finish up with a little rougher grit paper. The alternative would be to water pop the floor to open the pores back up so it accepts the stain readily. It helps to have two people staining one appling the stain liberally the other following behind wiping off the excess with a clean rag. You shouldnt have a problem with keeping the color consistant while appling just make sure you have enough stain to do the whole job, if you are going to need more than one container dont empty the first before you add the second always mix enough stain to do the entire job as one lot before you start.

Heres some advice I took from gary. I was nearvouse, putting watter on a floor and all when I've always been told not to before a stain job, but was extremely pleased with the result. I'll be final coating this floor tomorrow and I can't wait to do another one


..... by the way THANKS GARY!

http://www.hardwoodinstaller.com/hardwo ... =grain+pop

So Will, the water popping worked out well for you on that dark floor? Glad to hear it. Post pictures. We want to see.

Water-popping works really well. I've tried allowing stain ample time to dry before wipe-off and although it looks great on a sample board, it was very uneven and hard to wipe off uniformly over a large area. Of course, this was stain provided by a paint supply store and not user-friendly Dura-seal.

Have you found the Duraseal really is easier to work with than, say, Minwax stains?

I will confess that I hardly have extensive staining experience(I've probably worked on 20 or 30 jobs that were stained anywhere from light to dark to pastel). Among those, the majority have been with Duraseal, a few with Glitsa and two have been with paint-supply-store custom blended stain(possibly Minwax, the cans weren't marked). Those last two were both headaches for me. In both cases, the store took one stick of flooring and matched a stain that was either on the trim or cabinets. they told me to apply and let sit for several minutes before wiping. the longer the wait, the darker the end-result. From what I could tell, this is only because there is excess stain sitting on top of the board (not penetrating into the wood). The challenge with this, is that if your going to let the excess dry before wiping off, then your application has to be uniform. It's a lot easier to achieve this on a stick of wood than on 100+ sqft of wood. Any unevenness in the stain needs to be blended together which is very difficult since the stain is dry and too much elbow grease can easily remove more of the surface stain than you wanted leaving a light spot in your floor. Again, this has been my personal experience which is hardly extensive. Also, I rag on stain and a different application process may have provided better results. Anyone else care to weigh in

Dura Seal stains have gone through many different formulations. At one time, they were the best. I don't feel the same way today. IMO, Bona DriFast stains are the best for flooring. They are expensive. The problem I have with Minwax stains is the tendency for bleed back and slow drying. Another great stain brand is McCloskey's TungSeal. Excellent stain as well. Closest to what DuraSeal used to be. DuraSeal is ok but not great. Too thick and slow drying, IMO.