Hi, After moving into our new house we pulled the carpet up to see some beautiful old pine floorboards mixed with newer boards. I gave them a sand and you can see the difference quite clearly. The problem is they have obviously fixed damaged floorboards with new ones that're a lighter colour. I want to use Osmo oil as the final finish, so any suggestions to match them to the older ones would be very welcome!
Our Sospan is the chap you need, he had problems matching some timber,the company had a show room where you could get colour matching advice. But, I can't find the thread that he mentioned about it.
I had great success with products from a firm called Fiddes. I had to tint some white pine to look like light oak. I turned up at their shop and the guys spent the time to working out how to get an exact match. In the end it was a simple water based stain that we diluted 50/50. If you contact them 029 2034 0323 or fiddes.co.uk and send them a picture they will do their best to match the timbers and tell you the best way to maintain the colour. They do have downloadable guides as well
Cheers guys, much appreciate the advice. Lots of people seem to be using water based stain like Manns Water stain. I know it's a silly question but, how would I thin it down, with water?
Yes, plain H2o , water will lighten the colour, their water stains can be intermixed to get different shades.
Mixing the stain whilst essentially simple, getting the initial colour correct and then reproducing that colour in sufficient quantity to cover all the timber - if you run out during the batch you will never match the colour. I used a plastic syringe to measure the stain and also the water which gives you small amounts to play with. Don't be tempted to add more stain to a batch once mixed - you will never reproduce it again. Don't mix stain and sealers from different manufacturers they are very prone to react to each other. Fiddes make special floor sealers that will work with their products.
They had spare floorboards in the back of the shed that they didn't use, so should be able to test on that and try to get it right before I apply it to the actual floorboards.
I went with some Manns Antique Pine and brushed one thin coat, left for one minute and wiped clean. The other boards around it have only had a sanding with 40 grit paper so far, so should look a lot better when finished. Any tips for getting the grain to darken like the old pine would be appreciated.
Sorry, wrong choice of stain. Applying a second coat of stain will just make it too dark or worse still get dark brown smudges. Probably a chestnut or mahogany may have been closer - but if it was too dark you could have thinned it with water
30 years ago antique pine furniture was all the rage, we either used Colron light oak thinned 50/50 with white spirit or used a caustic soda solution that the pine was stripped in, you may have good results from a sugar soap wash over.
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