staining wood to match old elm

[Becka]

I have a patchwork floor of very old elm, oldish oak and pretty new pine, I'd like the 2 newer woods to blend in with the elm a bit better if possible but elm woodstain would appear non- existant, any suggestions?

thanks in advance,

Becka

 

[Penners]

Becka

If you're dreaming of getting all three woods to look the same, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. Staining one wood to look like another is never very successful, because the "look" of a wood is as much due to its grain or "figure" as it is the colour. And stains that make one wood indentical in colour to another are notoriously difficult to find or create.

In addition to this, you have the problem of the wood's behaviour to contend with. For example, your new pine is going to get darker and richer in colour as it gets older (this is caused by the oxidisation of the resins in the wood). So if you stain it tomorrow, it will look different next year - and in ten years time. Your oldish oak will probably still have some darkening to do, too, (depending on how "oldish" it is) in the longer term.

Personally I would just enjoy the natural variations in the colours and grain structure of the woods. It's what's known as "character"!

However, if you are still determined to do the staining, I suggest that you buy several different colours of wood stain (of the same type) and set about trying to mix up a colour (or rather two colours - because you'll need different ones for the oak and the pine). Try a mix (keeping a careful note of the proportions of each colour you have used) and then test it on some scrap wood. Keeping trying different mixes until you achieve what you want.

Oops! That's another problem of course - finding scrap wood that's (a) the right type and (b) the right colour to accurately represent what your stain is going to do on your floor! And you won't want to test your mix on the floor itself, because you could leave ugly discoloured patches.

I hope I'm not depressing you !

 

[Becka]

not expecting perfection, just something in the same colour family.. the pine is approx 50-60 yrs old and the oak is actually my own fault (for not recognising elm when I saw it, child of the 80's s first time I'd ever seen it as they all died when i was a nipper) and therefore assuming i was looking at an oak floor and using reclaimed boards to patch, which looked superficially a good match but came up much lighter with the wax on and added to that patchwork, the pine has had some stain on them, which is okish, the oak stands out most tho (and yes, the grain makes it very obvious too, but i was new at this wood recognising lark.. :? ) Will leave well alone if can't find somethingto just subtly darken the oak, but thought it was worth a bit of a play if thre was something easy to make it slightly les glaring..

 

[geoff]

I had a similar floor - a mixture of alder, ash, oak and some pine. They were in variable condition and a real mix of sizes (and thicknesses). They had obviously used what wood was available locally - it all appears to be hand sawn, hence the mix of size and thickness (even across single boards). They were also incredibly mucky. I used a belt sander to get the muck off with as little damage to the boards as possible (there's a risk to the surface patina with this, but there wasn't really any other option), but as you have more control with a hand sander, the results were OK. Luckily I had some offcuts of the boards (they had to be taken up and relaid after alterations) and could experiment a bit with finishes. I found stains didn't work well at all but coloured wax was good. The boards were finished quite dark originally and I found a few coats of Dark Oak Liberon wax gave a very nice finish - you can still see the grain and patina of the woods, but there is not too much contrast between them so it blends together well - it is also not too dark a finish and looks nicely aged. I also used some resawn old pine as infill and repairs in another floor and that blended nicely when waxed with the same stuff.

 

[Penners]

I like Geoff's idea - principally because a coloured wax is much more reversible than staining.

 

[Becka]

me too, can't believe I didn't think of that! any idea os osmo poly-x wax will go over other waxes? (being as that was the intended finish ultimately for hardwearingness..)