Finishing An Oak Floor

I remember pricing an oak floor, over a year ago now, and the customer said to me not to bother pricing in for staining and oiling the floor, they'd do that themselves. I cringed, as this can really make or break a floor. It's a shame to spent a lot of money on the oak and then skimp on the last bit.

 

 Last week I laid an oak floor, so all this week I've been juggling my week around sanding, staining and oiling it. Once the glue had gone off I filled all the deep knots, then spent a morning sanding all the filler off and any planer marks from the supplier (there were plenty). I sanded it to 120 grit as this is all that's needed for flooring.
I then spent quite a while cleaning it, making sure that there was no dust what so ever in the room before I set about staining it down to a medium oak colour.
The stain involved putting it on with a brush and then removing the excess with a rag (wax on wax off) and as the room was bigger than one pot would do, I emptied both pots into a container and mixed together so there would be no difference in colour tone.

This then took a day to dry before I set about oiling it. It took around two hours to apply the first coat of hard wax oil and this then took 24 hours to go off, I did set a large fan to blow over it to decrease the drying time.
I sanded lightly back between coats, hoovered it all again and applied the second (and last) coat of hard wax oil. I fitted the skirting in there yesterday and I'm really please with the finish. The floor has a warm even tone and is smooth to the touch. More pictures to follow!

Iron Oxide Finish

I've been experimenting again with different finishes and I read in a book that you can make your own finish for oak by mixing vinegar with iron of some sort (I used iron wool and a jam jar full of malt vinegar).

I put this mixture together three weeks ago and I decided it was time to test it out. On a piece of oak I arboteched out I could see the oak change colour slowly in front of my eyes, it ends up almost being a petroleum blue - a really amazing colour.

I then experimented further by turning a strip of oak and leaving the middle its natural colour (finished with shellac) and texturing the rest, then adding the stain and rubbing on a light covering of liming wax, this gave it a nice contrast. In the end I textured it again after I added the liming wax and applied more of the stain as it only reacts with the bare oak and could fill in the gaps.

Does anyone else have recipes for stains and finishes I can try? I've really enjoyed this experiment and I can see me using it in my future work.