I’ve had these banisters in my house for ages that had this really poorly done ugle brown/maroon paint. My wife got fed up with them and decided to strip and sand them.
Wonder of wonders, what’s under there is some kind of dense hardwood with some great grain to it.
Now I’m trying to decide how to finish it.
My initial plan had been what I always do: basic stain plus a wipe on poly of some sort. Pretty good, pretty easy.
However, this is significantly higher quality wood than the cheap pine I usually work with. It was suggested to me I look into a Tung or Danish oil, and I’ve now fallen down a deep rabbit hole of wood finishing.
Any preferred finishes that emphasize grain for pretty wood in high traffic areas?
Whatever you do, test the finish first. If you can remove the piece and do a test on the bottom, do it before you commit to the entire piece.
I’d probably do what you said, maybe use some sanding sealer first, and then stain and wipe on poly. I’ve had great success mixing poly and oil based stain 50:50 to make a wipe on finish.
Wish that was an option, but whatever dingaling installed this stuff put all kinds of caulk on the bottom edge and then nailed it in…
Somebody committed a series crime against wood with this lol. Just trying to come up with something reasonable.
Why would you go with a stain+poly vs a finishing oil of some sort?
Oil based poly will smell much much worse than shellac. Water based poly wouldn’t be so bad.
OP will have to deal with the smell of the stain anyway, might as well do it right and use oil based poly.
I’ll agree that shellac is a joy to work with and looks great, but I’d be worried someone would attempt to clean the wood at some point in the future and damage the finish
We’ve been dealing with the smell of citristrip this weekend lol, we can deal with the poly smells. Our house uses evap cooling which provides a ton of options for ducting air away from where the people are.
Citristrip isn’t bad in comparison. Oil based poly is pretty strong
I’d go with an oil-based polyurethane. Stain is your choice. While water based poly will have much less odor I’ve found it to be less durable.
Just go with the wipe on poly. The other oils don’t make that huge a difference, and build slower than what I would want in a high traffic area.
Wish I could help ya. You definitely want a hardened finish like poly or shellac, but shellac is going to stink up your home if you can’t remove the banisters to finish.
I’ve had a lot of luck with beeswax for a finish, but more for boxes than furniture. There are a lot of great bands out there, though you’d probably have to reapply every 6-12 months (which would get tedious)
Not to state the obvious, but how is the handrail finished?
No idea. Hand rial is the next project. Either going to sand down finish to match, replace with something new, or paint. Undecided.
clear coat?
Kaide! 👍
Hardwax oil like rubio, osmo or odies seem to be the favourites when it comes to higher end stuff, you can apply maintenance coats and/or repair fairly easily from what I heard.
Whatever you do, you should do the same with the handrail, it’ll clash of they don’t match
That’s part 2 of this project. We will see, the hand rails are not in great shape. May replace, or paint them. The banisters have more visual impact anyway, and are a significantly nicer wood.
I’d suggest either oil or water poly. Hardwax oil and other oils require ongoing maintenance, like once a year. Shellac is also a great finish but is not recommended for high traffic areas.
My choice would probably be Osmo PolyX. It’s fairly easy to apply, only take 2-3 coats, takes a little while to fully cure–but not as long as pure tung oil–and gives a nice, durable, natural looking finish. It can be freshened up fairly easily if necessary, unlike polyurethane. What I like about it is that it’s a fairly matte finish, so you get to see the wood without a high gloss.
If you want a shinier finish, you could try shellac. You’ll need to build up a lot of coats, but recoat time is about an hour to an hour and a half, so it’s not bad. You do need to sand lightly between each coat, and the final coat can be rubbed with powdered pumice to buff to a high gloss. Shellac can be damaged by standing water–it will bloom–but it’s fairly easy to repair. Be warned that if you think you might want to finish with poly at some point, you need to get dewaxed shellac; the natural waxes in shellac will interfere with other coatings.
