Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

I'm going to start from jump street just in case any of this info could be useful in solving my problem. I started by renting an orbital sander and sanded down my oak floors with progressively finer grit, I think about 36 to 80 or 100, 3 intervals total. I did the same with the edger. I then swept, used a shop vac, and a tac cloth to clean the floors of dust and debris. I then applied one coat of minwax floor conditioner and then my first coat of minwax polyshades antique walnut. The first coat I applied with a rag. It was an absoltue mess! I found that when it dried the next day, I had spot where stain dripped from the rag, I had some streaking, but not a lot, and some shading problems. I sanded with 0000 steel wool, but that didn't really help blend the streaks and things. I thought I would try a different application for the second coat today so I used a lambs wool applicator on the end of a stick. This worked way better and actually hid almost all the imperfections from the first coat, except maybe some of the differences in shades.

So, now my problem... I read about keeping a wet edge and all that and tried really hard to do that carefully, BUT I couldn 't figure out a way to always maintain a wet edge. I mean when you are staining a 100 X 75 foot room, it's impossible to maintain a wet edge on your whole perimeter, right? Or is there a trick I don't know. I worked the applicator with the grain and everything looked great until I finished a large section and then went to move down to do my next section. The first section had dried and then I overlapping my new stain with the stain that was partially dry. This created a much darker, very visible line straight down the center of both my dining room and my living room and a few other places!! I'm guessing it is because I have double the stain in those areas, once from the original that dried and once from overlap from the newly worked area.

So, my question is, is there any way to blend this line in?? My fiance and I have spent countless hours and put it so much hard work up to this point (not to mention the money spent) and the thought of starting over by renting the sander and breaking it all down again makes us consider potentially having carpets laid which we really don't want to do!!! The parts of the floor that don't have this overlap problem look amazing! We would really like to fix this somehow so we can put a final coat of stain on it and then maybe one or two clear coats.

Any suggestions, even if very difficult would be greatly appreciated! Starting over from scratch at this point would be really discouraging and I don't know that we have the ambition needed to go at it again the right way.

Thanks,
Jason

So Jason, you used PolyShades on a floor? Wrong product. That stuff is absolute junk. No wonder you're having problems. Without seeing pictures, I imagine you have a real mess on your hands now. Since there is no product called "Magic Screwed Up Floor Repair Spray", I'm afraid the only way to solve it is to re-sand the floors. Your choices are:

1) Do it again yourself, the right way.
2) Pay someone else to do it, the right way.
3) Pay someone to install carpet.

Sorry I don't have better news guy.

I was afraid someone might say something like that. Just went and looked at the back of the can and it clearly states on the back, DO NOT USE ON FLOORS.

Unbelievable that I didn't see that. Guess I'll be renting that sander again this weekend and starting over. Can't believe I just said that.

Thank you for the quick reply, and could I just ask a couple of quick questions to make sure I get this right the second time around...

Is it ok to use a lambs wool applicator for the stain (this time I'll buy minwax stain instead of the minwax poly)? Or should I be using a rag? The rag is a lot harder to apply with and it seemed to me that the applicator applied a much more even coat.

Should I use something other than minwax? That was the main product at the hardware store.

Should I sand between coats of stain? If so, should I use steel wool or sandpaper and which grade?

For the poly coat after the stain, do I need to sand between coats and what should I use to sand?

I noticed something on here about spraying with mineral spirits before staining. Is that something I should do? Or is a coat of the minwax floor conditioner ok for prep before staining?

Finally, I actually don't have a camera to take pics, but as you suggested below, I do have a real mess on my hands.

Thanks again for the reply and any additional suggestions are greatly appreciated!

JAson

You should only stain the floor one time. The pores of the wood can only hold so much stain/pigment. Kinda of you can only fill a glass so full idea there, too much just sits on top of the surface and will not bond to the polyurathane well. Wipe on and wipe off the excess should comeout nice and even with not to much efffort. Keep using clean rags to remove excess and just wipe on wipe off. Dont abrade the stain just let it dry throughly before putting on the poly coats. You will have to slightly abrade in between the coats of poly to promote a mechanical bond.
I would look for a diffrent brand of plyurathane to use I think minwax's diy floor finish is garbage, hard to work and doesnt hold up that great anyway.

If you are staining an oak floor, I wouldn't use the "conditioner". That's for softwoods, like pine. There's no need to wash the wood with paint thinner before staining. Just vacuum well. The correct way to stain is to either brush or rag on the stain in 3 foot sections, the length of the room. Then rag it off with clean rags until it appears even and no excess (puddles or splotches ) remain. Allow to dry THOROUGHLY. Minwax dries SLOW, so let it sit for a few days. You may need to go back over it, ragging off the excess again as Minwax has a tendency to "bleed back." Personally, if you can, I'd use BONA DriFast stains. They are more money but are way better and dry faster. You'll need to work quicker though. BONA also makes a poly called Woodline that's better than Minwax. There's also Duraseal and Fabulon, favorites of pros.

Thanks for all the help! We are going to give it go this weekend. I'll see if I can borrow a camera to take some pics and post them up on the site.

Great site. Very helpful.

Thanks again!