We're at a point in our house remodel where I need to start thinking of how I'm going to finish our maple floors. We currently have about 900 sqft of 1920's maple sealed in several layers of amber shellac, paint, and other coatings.

I'll be leaving what exists in place, and adding new maple to it, of course sanding it bare to give us a fresh start.

Herein lies the challenge, wife likes the color of the floor as it is (where not painted) as in identifying the finish I used alcohol to clean up an existing piece.

The task I was originally given is was to replicate the old finish (amber shellac) Now that she's seen this revealed piece of curly maple coated in nearly a century's worth of finish she has asked that I try to replicate the color and the depth (pop) of the shellac that resides on it today.

I won't be cleaning up the existing floor, too much damage to the existing finish and layers of paint in some areas. I'll be starting off fresh after a good sand.

I have successfully coated two floors with Minwax Acrylic Polyurethane for floors, I'm familiar with the product and it's use. One was I stained red oak and the second was gel stained doug fir. I was thinking of using this as my starting point due to expierience.

I know that staining maple is a bad idea, and I'm not looking for a blotchy outcome. I was thinking of adding dye to the polyurethane in order to achieve the color desired.

Has anyone done this before? Does it reduce the depth of the grain (pop)? If so is there a type of dye that anyone can recommend?

I'm open to any input, types of finish, processes, etc. I will be doing this myself so hiring the work is out of the question.

First picture: existing finish cleaned up with alcohol.


Second picture: Exploratory area of floor sanded with orbital, piece wiped with alcohol, and test panel.


Third picture: test panel, left is amber shellac, middle is bare maple, right is clear acrylic floor poly.


Thanks!

Wow that cleans up nice. Personally although not the cheap option would be to hire a professional to clean it all up and fix it how the wife wants. From the pics looks like it is going to be a lot of work. Although that Curly Maple done right is very beautiful. I wouldn't want to mess it up.

Well I ordered some Garnet colored shellac flakes to try as well as some dye advertised as compatablw with water based finishes.

We'll see how it goes.

Well through trial and error I think I have a good color match, though I still haven't  gotten the shellac I ordered.

Hopefully I can recreate the look a second time with shellac as I really don't want to use a stain if I don't have to.

Mixing dye with water based polyurethane was horrible, it did not work well at all. Mixing with shellac seemed to work much better.

Where I'm at today:

Please let us know what works and what doesn't... "aging" wood is a form of art so hearing what works and what doesn't is helpful.

Water dissolving aniline dyes mix with water based topcoats very well.

They come in a huge number of colors that can be mixed to whatever you want.

They are dies and NOT pigments.

And if you ever want a semigloss finish put the first coats down as gloss and only the final coat semi.

Wood floor finishing is like large area furniture finishing.

You can also use aniline dye directly on the wood, put a wash coat of 1 pound shellac on the floor and then cover it with water based poly.

Right now I'm honing in on the color using two different Transtint dyes purchased from Amazon and dewaxed garnet shellac.

I'm trying to find a good economical balance between the dyes and layers of shellac, as I'd like to keep the total layers of color to two, with another two layers of clear waxed shellac for the top coat.

I can achieve the color I want with 8 layers of garnet shellac alone, but that's extremely cost prohibitive at ~$48/gal.

Right now we're close, although with the dye mixed into the first layer of shellac I'm still splotching the grain of the maple as the dye absorbes just a little deeper than the shellac it appears.

Like some of you have mentioned, these analine dyes are incredible!

Very satisfied with the "pop" we're getting from the 2# cut of shellac. Even ordinary boards come to life.

Shellac is not usually used on floors as more than a very light cut to make a seled layer.

It is more water resistant when dewaxed but still not great.

If you wear through the top coat and moisture gets to the shellac it will blush.

As the top coat gets thinner and thinner the ability to exclude water will get less and less.

That shellac looks great.

Maybe use the dewaxed shellac for color and then switch to a waterborne such as Bona traffic for the topcoats?

You're right, not many folks use shellac anymore, especially as a top coat. That being said the wife grew up in a house with shellac floors from the 1930's and my FIL is pretty picky about his house. The blushing when it would happen, say a wet towel left on the floor, would leave a white mark which would fade away in a couple days.

He has a few spots which have worn through, and revealed the wood beneath. He's reapplied shellac to protect those areas without having to refinish the entire floor.

Dying the shellac detracts from those benefits, as blushing will be more evident and tougher to match in 20 years when repair is needed. I know.



I was thinking this may be the way to go, but the idea of being able to maintain the floors without requiring complete refinishing is really appealing to us, I can't quite figure out why... it just is.

Not all wet spot blushing will disappear by itself.

A coat of real mayonnaise over the blush does help.  As dumb as it sounds it works. Dump it on and spread with fingers.

When it dries (it never really does) wipe the spot gently.

Use a mild soap and a minimum of water to make a barely damp rag to wipe the area.


Gentle heat will also help but it takes a lot of time.

Keep a written record of what and how you finished it.

It makes it a lot easier to repair damage years latter.  What cut was that shellac?

That was a 2# cut of dewaxed garnet as the first coat, and a 2# cut of dewaxed garnet mixed with analine dye for the second coat. Two layers of clear waxed shellac as the top coat.

One concern I have is the garnet will show blushing more obviously than a lighter finish since it's certainly a darker finish.

Repairs are also going to get tricky if the dyed layer gets damaged, I'll be recreating this effort years from now if the company is no longer making the same dye it goes out of business.