Ebony Stain on Hardwood Floors Revisited
- Filed under:
- Floor Finishing
By Jim Birch on January 15, 2009
Dark, black floors are the new reds! It’s official. Inspired by one of our Flooring Forum Threads, that was started back in 2005, I’d like to offer up some advice, tips, and concerns about staining your wood floors black.
First off, I’d like to address the downsides of having dark floors. Life shows its wear on them. The darker the floor, like the higher the finish sheen, the more dust, dirt, pet hair, etc will show up on top of them. Even the smallest scratches, dents, finish, and sanding imperfections will show more than neutral colored floors. They do look fantastic though! So measure up your lifestyle and think about your future self living in your home. What looks incredible in a photo shoot in a magazine in some super modern downtown Chicago loft, may not be right for your home.
With that being said…
White Oak Hardwood Flooring is the best species for ebony stain. White Oak takes stain a lot deeper and richer than Red Oak. After the floor is sanded to it’s final grit and buffed, the trick is to “pop the grain”. Popping the grain is simply wetting the grain with water, which allows it to open up a little more and take the stain deeper than it normally would. In the example photos below, we used a wet white knit rag (T-shirt) that was thoroughly rung out. Another method I have seen professional flooring contractors do is to use a garden type pump sprayer willed with water and a small amount of denatured alcohol and lightly spray the floor. The denatured alcohol helps the water flash off quicker. Do not get the floor soaking wet! You just want to wipe dampness on the floor to open the grain. You do not want to get that floor wet!
Popping the grain on White Oak helps the stain take deeper.
Wipe on the stain with a rag covered in stain, wipe off the excess with a dry rag after a few minutes.
Finished sample, the left side of the board which was water popped is much darker and richer than the right side that was not.
A couple of random staining tips, tricks, and “make sure you dos!”
- Always Wear gloves. Stain stains!
- Always Wipe Off Excess Stain. Stains are meant to penetrate, not sit on top of the wood. If you don’t wipe off the excess stain, the next layer of finish may not stick.
- Always throw away your used rags, away from saw dust. Stain rags have a tendency to combust, especially if they are mixed in with sawdust. Soaking them in water helps (in an empty old 5 gallon bucket if you have on lying around).
- Dark stains may take more time to dry. The darker the stain, the more pigments are in there. The more pigments, the longer the stain takes to dry.
- A second layer of stain will only add 10% more color to the floor. Since stains penetrate into the wood, a second coat of stain desn’t really do much.
- Make sure your sanding job is perfect. Nothing shows off evern slight imperfections in your sanding job like a dark stain!
Good Luck!
We are thinking of staining our oak floors black ebony satin. Our contractor said that we will need 4 layers of water based polyurethane satin to achieve a dark ebony color. However your photos show that the final color does not resemble a flat ebony color but a rather wood with many diferent strains and coloring, none of them perfectly black. Can a perfect black (no strains) color be achieved with oak?
Comment by Claudio De Luca — March 26, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
Claudio,
It is Oak’s grain that makes it take stain so well. If you do not like the grain of oak, you can choose a Riftsawn, or Quartersawn cut, which is the edge grain of the tree. This will have the least amount of graining. If not, painting the floor black (gasp) will cover most of the grain.
The amount of finish you put on top does not really effect the color, only the durability.
Be sure to have samples made before you try it on the floor.
Good Luck,
Jim
Comment by Jim Birch — April 6, 2009 @ 12:19 pm
How do you get rid of all the edger marks with out causing some kind of Halo/picture framing?
Comment by Rob — July 4, 2009 @ 6:55 pm
Rob,
Buffing with a sanding screen helps. For dark stains, I like to keep on the same grit as the last pass of the sander/edger (instead of going up one grit), to help. Then I usually go up one grit after to remove the scratches I left from that pass…
Dark stains are the worst for showing imperfections in the sanding! I used to have a boss that would remove a couple of the stain from the old fan decks before he gave them to customers!
Good Luck,
Jim
Comment by Jim Birch — July 6, 2009 @ 10:07 am
Had a similar question posted over on youtube. Here was my response:
That is most likely from the sander that you used to do around the edges of the rooms. If the stain came out light there, then you sanded that area too fine. If the stain is darker, then that area is too rough. A buffer after the final pass with the sander helps even everything out.
Comment by Jim Birch — July 6, 2009 @ 10:09 am
Hi, i have pre-war strip oak floors (not sure if they are white or red oak) and i recently applied a nice dark stain (not ebony but more like a walnut). Unfortunately I need to remove the stain because I made some mistakes & want to start again. Can i use a the screening process to remove the stain? What grit should i begin with?(I am thinking 80?). Or is it absolutely necessary to use a sander?
Comment by Cajeta — December 7, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
Cajeta,
Since the stain penetrates into the wood, the buffer is more than likely not going to work. You would need to get very aggressive with the buffer going with 50 or 60 grit, which I wouldn’t recommend, because then you will leave swirl marks in the floor which will be hard to remove with the next grit, and will be very obvious with the dark stain.
Try to rent a random orbital sander. It’s like a buffer, but instead of swirling, it has a random orbit motion. You can see what I am talking about in Wojtek’s video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_t-HuwgvlM
Good Luck,
Jim
Comment by Jim Birch — December 9, 2009 @ 12:39 pm