I have my first maple staining job coming up. How do you guys water pop. I have done oak with a damp mop but want to make sure the maple comes out even. Also has anyone tried wood conditioner? I use it when I am doing pine trim.

water popping wont make it even..just richer in color

you will still get the blotch eeffects in the grain patterns

Dying is best,, and transtint you can tint finishes too to help it.

Use General finishes stains..they are alcohol/waterbased mix dye stains.

they cover rich in color, evenly and true.

cut floor minimum 3 times starting as fine possible.
finish all sanding on same grit.

hand prep edge work with same grit

skip the screening

no screening makes me nervous I usually use my bona multi disc to blend everything together.

dont be shy


finish all on same girt..its maple..leave the pores open

to add further,

I have literally rubbed the whole floor down with sheet rock sander tools and same grit and machine finish..

this helps it come out perfect..

dont screen maple

I would take a different approach to sanding . I typically cut the field 40-80-120 or 150 . I take the edges to 100 or 120. After the sanding is done , I pop the floor .I use a padco ,hot water and add some denatured alcohol to speed up the drying .

Once the floor is popped and dry, I buff the hell out of it .I start with a 120 screen and then switch to a 150. Popping brings up the machine lines so that the buffer can more easily get them it . Popping probably cuts the buffing time in half or close to it .Without popping , you will be buffing forever.

I now have a multi disc so if you also have one , you can probably get better results by using the multidisc first and then switching to a screen.

Once the floor looks right, I would definitely use wood conditioner or zinnser shellac that is cut 50% with denatured alcohol . As far as which stain, James is talking about using alcohol base stain really. It dries super fast and for that reason appears less blotchy .Because it doesn't go far into the wood . Adding tint to alhohol is basically making an alcohol based stain versus using solvent based minwax,duraseal or whoever.

Paul

They are alcohol/waterbase dye stains..they spread beautifully an d give rich coverage.

a little transtint or universal tint into your finish and you will really create a dream product.

ever wonder hoe prefin manufacturers achieve these beautiful effects and colors?

they use dyes.

The method i offered and use to sanding is actually NWFA recommended.

I don't see how you wouldn't end up with a ton of rings from all that screening.

the sanding sequence would look miraculous I'm sure for a natural floor but a stain? especially dark?

From what I recall shellac is a 3 lb cut out of the can..it needs to be 1 lb cut to be used under stain so it would need to be diluted by 2/3rds to actually get penetration of the stain.

Everyone go their thing but I personally dont like using conditioners/shellacs

water popping is a big help..

do yourself a favor and try the general finish stain..you'll be glad you did..make your own little 3x3 samples to play with it

Buffing most any floor for a stain job leaves gossamir buffing swirls. Unless the subfloor is super flat but that rarely happens.

If you get all the machine lines out , which is the really important part , you can do all sorts of things to finish off the floor like using drywall sanding poles like you mentioned.

I did use General Finish water based stain twice . I can't remember if it was more even looking than solvent based stain. But they were water based like you say and in both cases, were very dark colors . Unfortunately, water based stains are incredibly stiff to work with and take a lot more time than solvent based stains.