I sanded existing oak floor with 150 paper and applied mahagony stain before poly coat (it is oil based minwax). How to avoid the black streaks that are in top third portion of picture below? It sure wont look pretty when floor is all black..or is this normal when dark mahagony stain soaks into wood.


http://i744.photobucket.com/albums/xx82 ... ding-1.jpg

When ever one chooses to stain an open grained wood like oak, the open grain section of that wood will absorb much more stain than the closed grain. We call the open grain areas summer wood or summer grain. This represents when the tree is most actively growing. The more dense ( and lighter colored ) sections of the wood are commonly referred to a spring grain or winter grain. These areas are when the tree is less active and dormant. These areas absorb less stain because the cellular structure is much more dense. Some tricks finishers use are:

* water popping the grain to help in a more even coloration
* using a stain controller.

But usually, oak stains like that and there's not much that can be done. Look through the photo section of oak flooring to see what I mean.

Ya, like Gary says.

I have had that problem a lot in the past with minwax stains. Using their professional version (Duraseal) helps a lot but it is a different colour selection. Dont know how red you want your floor but hopefully you can find an "out of the can" colour that works for you.

A newbie to floors but one that's been staining oak pretty regularly for the past year:

Wouldn't the obvious cause be not keeping a wet edge? Letting one portion dry before you get back to it?
Also Minwax has some sort of finish in there I've noticed it always leaves some sort of sheen or something.
FOr that reason I've used either a tonetic stain like Pratt & Lambert which is watery thin, or now I've switched to my beloved Zar which is thick like pea soup. Either one will leave the wood flat as bare with no luster.

But it looks like you overlapped the edges in which case you are kind of staining it twice in one setting?