Should You Stain Maple Floors

For those of you who don t know maple is a tricky wood to stain.

Should you stain maple floors. Staining maple is generally not recommended by finish manufacturers since the dense grain does not allow the penetration of most pigments. Not every hardwood floor is a good candidate for staining. No maple doesn t take stain well. By pre sealing the wood with shellac you can even out the color absorption.

Staining maple is generally not recommended by finish manufacturers since the dense grain does not allow the penetration of most pigments. The standard industry answer to this question has been that maple floors are meant to have clear finishes and could not be stained. This is probably said thousands of times a day across the us during a site evaluation of a wood floor. This is because maple is very tightly grained generally but there are turns in the grain that are more absorbent.

Maple is a difficult wood on which to achieve uniform stain and the appearance can look as if the stain was not applied evenly. This is exactly what darin was trying to do. Before applying the stain to the client s floor you might want to try the whole process on a test panel so you can find the best application process whether it s a rag t bar or some other applicator. Contractors are at a disadvantage when refinishing wood floors on site because they cannot replicate the unique processes used in factory finishing in the field.

It tend to absorb stain unevenly which leads to a blotchy look. Before applying stain to your wood floor you need to know what species it is. If you choose a traditional resin based stain you should apply it in a thin coat. Hard maple birch and alder are among species notorious for taking stain unevenly.

For the record this is not really an option because i refuse to spend that much on floors but it was an option presented. Have all the wood sanded and use a water popping technique custom stain to get the desired darker brown floors. We highly recommend a stain conditioner to control the evenness of the application. Due to the extremely tight cellular structure and variable grain patterns inherent in northern hard maple the maple flooring manufacturers association mfma does not recommend staining or bleaching maple strip flooring under any circumstances.

The result will probably be close to this and will cost roughly 6 000 7 000. Maple and birch are tight grained woods with very small pores and the density of the pore wall fibers varies drastically. Hopefully this article was enlightening on maple flooring and staining it. Dyes work better but limit the colors available.

At the top of the list of floors that should often be left natural are ones with close grained wood. At city floor.