Please help: dark stain for solid quartersawn white oak?

13 years ago

Our beautiful new quartersawn white oak floors were just installed, and are due to be sanded tomorrow; stained the next. I've looked at different Minwax stain colors (provincial, early american and gunstock) and our GC has applied them to a plank with a single coat, followed a single coat of poly to give me an idea. To me, they look pretty light --- and the color does not seem as saturated/deep as my existing, preengineered Bruce hardwood "gunstock".

So please tell me, how can I achieve a darker, medium dark stain? Don't want to go super dark, like an ebony, but darker than gunstock. I read in a wood forum that maybe a dye should be used? Will flooring contractor know what to do with a dye versus a stain? He's going to follow the stain with 4 coats of Poly because of our dog (Bella).

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Comments (5)

glennsfc
13 years ago
Perhaps water popping, if you can find someone who knows how to do that...probably a trained floor finisher?
peytonroad
13 years ago
I went with the minwax Jacobean. I nearly had a heart attack at first with the darkness of them but they lightened CONSIDERABLY! I have red oak QS floors, they are just gorgeous! Here are some pictures. PLease go with this stain, I wanted dark floors and believe it or not, this is not the dark I wanted but I am soooo glad i went with this color. The ebony was just too black and I did not want black I wanted brown.
So, would I do it again wanting dark brown, YES!
here are pics, while staining and the last two after shellac. the last photo is the color of the threshold, regular red oak. I hope this helps you.
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bellacucina
Original Author
13 years ago
glennsfc, we are on a timeline to get the kitchen done.... so I didn't push for popping of the rays with danish oil, or even water popping. Gotta draw the line somewhere! This flooring guy seems to know his stuff.

Thanks peytonroad! Your pics are wonderful ---and your floors -WOW! We did a sample of the jacobbean and it was beautiful, but a little too brown for the cherry w/ dark stain cabs.

So after looking at what others have used, we did a sample with 50-50 ebony and red mahogany, and finally went with a mix of 75% red mahogany, 25% ebony. It was just enough black to take the pink undertone out of the red mahogany. So the floors were stained today, and I love the 'custom' shade. It's perfect with the dark cherry cabs!
bama12
13 years ago
bellacucina....How did your floors turn out? We are about to stain our floors also, and had previously used provencial. I also want to go with a little bit darker color.
bellacucina
Original Author
13 years ago
Hi bama12, they are beautiful! I'm not sure whether my dh took any pics of the floor, but will post back tomorrow if he did... It still is not 100 percent done tho, so may look slightly different in the end. The floor guy did 2 coats of poly now- before cabs go in- and will do 2 more when everything is done.

The color is like the darkest veins in a Bruce gunstock panel, maybe with the tiniest hint of red in it. But it would be best to try it to see what you
think. My cherry cabs with sable glaze are only slightly darker tho...so hopefully there's enough contrast when all the pieces of the puzzle are together.