How To Stain Maple Wood Floors

Sand the floor for both applications the best way to start is by sanding the maple floor flawlessly.

How to stain maple wood floors.

I am trying to finish maple to a brown appearance. Hard maple floors offer a nice light bright look to a room and are often paired with matching cabinetry when the home is built. Having said that diy maple floor staining can be tricky and often best left to the pros. At the top of the list of floors that should often be left natural are ones with close grained wood.

I am using a dewaxed shelac as a sanding sealer and this imparts a slightly amber tone to the wood and when i apply the col. The maple flooring manufactures association actually discourages the practice. Maple must be sanded uniformly. Leave the pre stain to soak into the wood for about 10 15 minutes before wiping off any excess with a clean shop cloth.

As with other hardwoods such as cherry maple can be a bit temperamental to finish particularly when staining. Maple gel stain i get an orange tone wood instead of the brown i would like. Luckily many brands already offer pre stained maple hardwood planks so you don t really need to go down the diy staining route unless you really have a very unique or custom blend color in mind. When applying a stain be sure to use a pre stain conditioner to try and even out the blotchy patches that tend to appear.

Since maple is a hardwood the stain could be blotchy or not absorb well unless it s pretreated. Staining hardwood maple floors. Hard maple birch and alder are among species notorious for taking stain unevenly. Maple is also known for having an inconsistent grain pattern often leading to blotchy stain finishes.

This week s question comes from darin. Not every hardwood floor is a good candidate for staining. Maple is a difficult wood on which to achieve uniform stain and the appearance can look as if the stain was not applied evenly. Use a natural bristle brush to apply a thin layer of pre stain to your piece.

Maple hardwood floors are tough to stain. Maple is notorious for blotching. It is an extremely hard wood that blotches due to poor sanding technique. This won t completely solve the problem though.

The tight cellular structure of the wood makes it difficult to get a stain to penetrate properly. The two options available are staining maple using a dye water soluble or solvent soluble or alcohol soluble or using a conventional resin based wiping stain. Many consider this a nice contemporary scandinavian look. Dyes work better but limit the colors available.