kimber

I am in the process of staining my stairs. The stairs were terribly damaged and were even moreso damaged when I applied Peel Away to get the paint off and the product turned into cement. Because of that, corners of my stairs were fried in the edges and so the edges are much much darker. I used this product on my stringers also, but after I neutralized with vinager and cleaned them they seemed okay.

A good amount of time has passed (I have house guests that wont leave the house) and I continued to sand the stairs, using fine sandpaper last. I used minwax pre conditioner, waited about a half hour and then applied Minwax oil based stain in red oak to both the stairs and stringers and wiped off any excess about ten minutes later. On the minwax can it says not to sand in between coats, so I waited over the 4 hours required to put another coat on.

My first problem is that about 75% of the stringers have a white sheen, well theres no sheen but when light hits its definitely cloudy looking. It looks pretty horrible.

The second coat of stain on the stairs is drying tacky. My feeling is that I should wait until they finally dry and use some steel on the stairs and start the second coat again-but again, the Minwax can advises against that.

My last question is how many coats of stain is too much and can you use a darker color over a lighter color? I know I cannot blend the stairs discoloration great, but I would like to try to even it out a little better than what the red oak is achieving.

Thanks