I would not recommend Sikkens. We put it on our brand new mahogoney deck and it was stunning, until it started to peel. The rep came over to see it and said it was because we didn't seal every cut edge of the deck. Meaning the cut end that were already in place. We then sanded the whole deck and have used a variety of things over the years. The best by far was a product I learned about on this web site. Unfortunately I don't remember what it was, but we ordered it on the web and I think The Deck guy or Deck man recommended it. I'm sure it was cheaper than Sikkens. Hate to rain on your parade but I definately would not use it. Good luck

my hope was to only use the buffer to get everything consistent on my last passes.. I've gotten the floor to a flawless look that I went over every square inch with my palm sander and spotlight.. but now I've realized that the small imperfections I thought I was removing at this stage I was actually polishing them into the grain.. I could possibly just raise it as it is now at 220, then sand it to 150 (I couldnt find any 180 so I had to jump from 150 to 220 and will be the same thing to get it back down.. 100 and lower are the only grits that are available to me that I havnt had to get shipped.. so I'm ok with trying to take it from 220 straight back down to 100, do the majority of my buffing at 100 and then return it to 120 then 150 (i only have a couple of these screens to work with) .. I'm currently looking for information on using the water popping methods to help with sanding.. obviously this is a little bit of a different case since I'm working two sections at different grits trying to bring them to the same consistency.. and the riskyness of using these grain raising methods to help me with the sanding at different stages that may cause one section to stain differently than the next is a big concern yet feels like it may be essential to not inadvertently buff everything that is polished without getting much result wich will only be apparent when I attempt to stain again.. the safer way may be to return this section to 220 so I can take the entire floor back down to 100 using the same methods on the entire floor.. but I'm still stuck trying to remove the last bits of stain that went deep.. if I raise the grain at this early sanding stage in hope that it will allow me to remove this color it may make this whole section penetrate deeper down the road even after it's taken from 60G all the way to 150G.. hmm.. my brain is starting to hurt.. and this project has now cost me so much $ time and effort.. I've got too much skin in the game to not be able to say that it was done very well at the end of the day.. reputation is in the line.

I just went through the same thing. But then I'm a rehabber and get my fixer uppers at foreclosure sales at half their final market value. Hand the contractor a copy of your photos, and then simply lock the contractor out of the house. Ignore any payment the contractor thinks they have coming. And start over. Document what's there. but it looks like you have plenty of pictures in hand in case the contractor has the gall to complain later formally or try to take credit for someone else's work. Moving on, the first thing you'll want to do is change your mindset to only contracting out a room or two at a time. If the contractor doesn't work out, there is less money involved. I've never seen a floor contractor who would or could show the work of his last job, especially with old rehab floor boards. I'm sure it is difficult since they often times got fired from their last job. It is true that a good contractor can take one look at your floor and assess it on sight. The problem is that you can't, and you can't tell a real contractor from a poser, and you can't believe anything that you are told by a poser. Next you'll need to assess a room of interest. You'll need to drum sand at 36 or 40 grit. A Home Depot $75/day drum sander will work fine. Always spread lowering the drum control over a 12" long rolling movement to prevent burning the floor, which is the term for a hard drum drop. An untrained millenial with that instruction could do it if you take away his cell phone for the day. You'll need the millenial for the day anyway to lift the sander. Subsequent sandings at higher grit numbers will follow. End with an orbital 12x18" sander finish buff at 100 grit starting with pencil marks on 5 separate occasions then twice with the 12x18" screen buff with use of a $1 carpenters pencil to scribble on every sq ft of sanded oak between every grit number. Any floor contractor could do it, but few will do it piecemeal. A 6" 60 grit disc on a Harbor Freight $130 Hercules Sander is used for edge sanding and to feather out any accidental drum drops which are simple to find after the first coat of stain is applied. Stay clear of professional edge sanders, which homeowners often times call the Tasmanian Devil. Stain and finish are applied wearing an FDA Approved air pressure mask fed by an air hose from a $500 HobbyAir machine plugged in outdoors. The proactive approach is more like feeling out the unstained floor with finger tips like Helen Keller or shining daylight or hallogen light on the bare sanded oak before staining to find any dips caused by hard drum drops. Using a flooring contractor, probably the best you could do would be an option to quit at $1 a sq/ft or two if the drum sanding doesn't yield accceptable results. If the floor gets too thin or the marks you wish to lose are too deep to sand out before making the floor too thin, then you have your answer, and you are ready for new wood. New wood doesn't cost much. I paid $3.20 sq/ft for the wood material plus self installation. Always pay more for longer boards in the mix. And your floor looks beat and pet or plant water stained half to death anyways. New red oak of dubious quality is widely available on Facebook for $1/sq ft in any sized quanity. You'd think you died and went to heaven if $1/sq ft new oak flooring in 2.5" width was installed in lieu of your existing flooring, moisture content, acclaimation time, and warpage aside...start really small. Dark stain like Minwax Jacobean, two or three coats, and a 15 minute wait time will cover almost anything in minimally acceptable fashion on really beat floors. Once you pull that thread in the sweater of rehab, the whole sweater often times unravels. Replacing wood flooring is not an all or nothing proposition. In one house with 1700 sq ft, I had 2 sq ft replaced in 4 different rooms, before final drum sanding. They can reweave in a repair for about $300 a spot and if the carpenter is good, you can't even tell. It is a refinish contractor who knows the good temp floor carpenters that do good spot repairs. In another house, I paid a demo contractor to remove all the existing boards and then nailed in 3286 sq ft of new red oak using a $160 floor cleat nailer from Harbor Freight, a $50 jig saw, and a $90 Porter Finish nailer from Harbor Freight, and a $160 air compressor from Harbor Freight, and a $110 10" framing saw from Home Depot. It took weekends for a couple of months. Cleats are about $10 a box at Harbor Freight. Any handyman with access to youtube videos can do the installation. The trick is hidden female-female join strips available over the counter from Lumber Liquidators for 50 cents /ft and special order nose pieces for $4/ft that have the 1/4 female grove for level drops like stairs. Works just like lego. Cleats only go in the male connection or tongue side. I hired an unsuspecting millenial handyman through Angi's List by asking for floor leveling and trained him using youtube videos to do the leveling, sanding, staining, and polyurethane paid one day at a time. Even that has to be limited to a room or two a day. Cost was less than half professional estimates and few flooring contractors will do anything without a contract for everything, and you never know which steps he can do well, and which he will fail at. In Chicago, a good flooring contractor has a cost of $1.5 sq ft., but they only like to work in the city limits. In Ohio, it's more like $10/sq ft for just the finish contractor even on simple unfinished new wood installation, which is what they all figure they are worth. You'd have to do a room complete yourself to qualify for project managing others, but then you'd be very capable for knowing when to fire someone. 90% of professional flooring installers fail at floor leveling or rather floor smoothing in older houses. After talking with the president of the NHWA, and the all of the most expensive flooring contractors in my area, it is obvious that I'm the most knowledgeable in leveling or smoothing out 20 year old big box Homes believed to have been built by the cheapest contractors in all the land. Don't allow removal of any wood strips or other underlayment pieces especially those glued or stapled in place under the existing flooring or you risk entering into the wonderland of the next level of skilled craftsman, the floor leveler who will offer to remove your floor boards to the rafters and install new underlayment plywood in lieu of leveling on top of your existing floor underlayment.

Gel stain is not a panacea for imperfect sanding. In addition it's not a good idea to leave excess stain on the surface. I would hand scrape and sand an area where the finish wasn't completely removed and see if another application of stain on that spot made it blend. Start with one in the lower left of your picture. It might be necessary to tape off individual boards or groups of boards when re-staining. Another option would be to apply a coat of poly then do a glaze/faux finish touch up on top of the poly.