My mum has asked me to restain her bannister/spindles and door thresholds on downstairs doorways. The bannister appears to be made of light oak with a waxed finish. This needs stripping due to damage and a small amount of filling is required. The thresholds are oak an appear stained, wood condition is poor and far from smooth with lots of small chunks out of it. I have spent the morning reading online and had a patchy mobile call to a friend who restores houses for a living but it currently in South Africa. His advice was to use colron dye on both, with a clear satin varnish on the thresholds and a wax finish on the bannister. He mentioned something called sanderlier or sandolier or something similar but could not understand what he was saying nor find anything of this nature using google. I asked him about a conditioner before using the colron and sadly again could not understand what he was saying. ( the line was pretty bad ) He said that an alternative would be to use danish oil on the bannister, then wax and polish but recommended using colron. I have stained and varnished doors and sets of drawers before but nothing like this nor use a dye before and need to do it this weekend due to time constrains so if anyone could advise on the best way to approach this and which products to use I would be very grateful for your time and assistance.
Perhaps he was saying Sadolin? Another brand that do a range of stains and varnishes. What colour are you intending on using? If you're not really going that dark I'd go with oiling to be honest, there's no real benefit of using a stain other than aesthetics, if you go with stain, colron stuff is okay, but make sure you leave it to settle once applied, I think it says on the tins to allow 24 hrs, you can probably get away with less depending on temperature but it does need to be left before applying anything over it as it does significantly lighten as it eventually dries properly ( feeling dry does not mean it's done ) and applying a top coat will mess that up and it will be patchy a few days/weeks down the line. Alternatively a water bourne stain will settle quicker and allow for top coating sooner. When you say about filling, bare in mind that if there's anything significant that the filler will take stain or any other finish for that matter differently and stick out like a sore thumb with clear finishes, if it can be avoided I would do so, if they're small areas then a better solution is glue and sawdust, it will match in much better and take finishes more evenly. If you're not looking for a big colour change over natural oak I'd be inclined to oil, I'm a big fan of oil finishes, and applied well it's a very durable finish.
Thank for the reply The colour is going to be darker, I haven't seen it yet but she has just had a new floor installed in the hallway which I think from pictures I have seen is either dark oak or ash. What ever I do needs to be hard wearing, mums disabled with walking sticks and is forever denting and scuffing things I do for her with her sticks. I don't think he meant sadolin as he told me off the bat not to use a stain and that a dye would be better for the banister anyway. Regarding the filling, thanks for the headsup but am aware, I've mixed up "stainable" filler with stain before and aware of how unstainable it is compared to real wood. Sadly one of the spindles is snapped I repaired it for her but will need some filling. Just before dinner I was reading up on Fiddes products noted from another thread on here and am going to call them tomorrow, kind of thinking of using their dye > sanding sealer > wax I just thought that if using dye was best to put something else on first I keep reading about called conditioner. If it was me I would go for the naked look when it comes to wood. Thanks for taking the time to reply R.W_Carpentry it is apreciated
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