Getting ready to sand a friend's floor on her new purchase. It's a majestic rare 1937 Bungalow with Deco interior even a Vitrolite batch! House is 100% white oak quartersawn floors.

I've done a Heart Pine floor in my shop (huge PITA) and my own home's Red Oak regular rift (99% of homes).

This will be a dream to work, no radiators and floors are almost perfect with a tad of cupping, and only original shellac.

Here's my issue: I have a couple Bona colors and after some hand scraping then R/A orbital 150, any of the stains I tried for sample, are simply too light to make the tiger striping sing! Maybe the poly would darken it up some but I'm not sure what to do to make the contrast pop and darker.

I will NOT water pop since I've never done it and won't experiment on a friend's home, plus we are on a major deadline to make it appraise

Will be using Bona Dri-fast Oil stain, as well as Bona Oil Poly Semi.

Thinking the best thing is to make my final Clark-8 drum passes and edging a bit rougher grit eh? 60? 80?

Thanks in advance.

Quarter sawn will be lighter using any color for staining compared to plain sawn.
We always end with 100 grit. Blend the stopping area in the middle of the room with 60 grit hand sanding. Use 100 grit on the edger, with a fiber pad under the paper. Scrape the edges carefully and then use 80 grit to blend in the edging and big machine by hand sanding here, too.
Polish with steel wool after the stain is dry with #2 or #1.
Poly will yellow after some time, and people seem to like the yellow. If you want to see more of the figure, then use conversion varnish.
I would use a warm brown color like special walnut stain.