Pine Floorboards Finishing

The only good finish is a clear varnish. Some stain can be orangey. Any colour in the finish shows up badly where it chips - and it will on pine flooring.

Whatever colour you want you can't have in the sense that pine changes over years from white to brown. Once it browns it only looks good if it's unstained, otherwise it's dark & characterless.

NT

I stained ordinary white wood skirting- which I suppose many would call pine - to match real oak flooring. Then varnished it. Still looks good some years down the line.

Water-based lacquers/varnishes tend to be less prone to orange. Many years ago I bought some flooring grade product (from Screwfix) and we have still got some left. Used it on all sorts of things. Much tougher than some other water-based finishes.

In itself, it is water-clear and has virtually no tendency change over years. Whereas most oil-based finishes start out at least a little yellow/orange/brown and worsen over the years. Sure, the pine itself will darken, but seems to remain the right side of Trump's face.

In my opinion pine aquires a nice rich colour as it ages over the years. I thought people stained pine to make it look like old pine, and the orange colours I have seen are the result of stains and dyes that have fades in sunlight and end up looking like tika masala sauce.

So my advice would be to leave the colour, and to finish the boards with linseed oil. With an oil finish you can easily clean and re-oil patches of wear in the future. If you stain and varnish you will have to sand everything off and start again.

TW

Treatex. Available in a variety of shades (test first as shade + pine does produce a different shade).

I've used it on my "no name redwood" (aka cheap softwood but not the cheapest which is called whitewood) 7x1" boards.

The best parts of Treatex are:

2) Fast dry time;

Mine have had one coat during the drying phase to reduce cupping and warping. When I clamp them up and fully fix** I will give another coat of stain and maybe a coat of clear.