My only experience is with Loba products, so I won't comment much on the Bona except to say that if you have read reviews of any product yellowing over time, then I would say no, there is nothing you can add to prevent that. Be very cautious of any product containing oil, as it will yellow in time, and even some products claiming to be "waterborne" can dry down to an oil base, so read up on each product before committing. In terms of the Loba 2K Invisible Protect AT (which stands for "Advanced Technology" versus Loba's non-AT version of the same product which is still sold, so make sure you get the AT as it is more durable), the company does claim that it can be used alone to help create a natural finish that is a little lighter than other products in the lineup, but I have followed the stories of people here at Houzz who have tried to use it alone in that manner, and it generally has not worked well. In one case, someone even had to sand down a first coat of 2K Invisible AT and start over using Loba's WS EasyPrime first. The WS EasyPrime will not only prevent side bonding of the wood which could be an issue for you, but it will also help that first layer of 2K Invisible AT to go on much more smoothly. Knowing what I know about how Loba products work, I would never personally recommend anyone using the waterborne products without the WS EastPrime underneath. Is it going to darken your wood? Yes, faintly, but the wood itself is going to darken as it ages over time, and that is your REAL problem more so than which brand of finish you use. Oak, including white oak, will turn amber as it ages, and it will never be the same as it when it was first sanded and installed, regardless of coating type. If you want a lighter look permanently, you need to use a bleaching product or a whitewash product before you even start putting a top coat on to help maintain that lighter color. Another issue with any Loba product is that it has powerful self-leveling compounds which can induce dripping on the vertical stairwell risers. You need to talk to whomever your coating application serviceperson is and make certain that they have experience working with stairways with these flooring products to prevent dripping and other issues. The "2K" in the Invisible Protect AT means it is catalyzed using two parts combined right before applying. Loba claims a 10-minute working window for that catalyzed coating before it starts to set up, but I found it to be more like a 5-minute window once you lay it on, so if your provider is not familiar with working with 2K products, you could end up with a huge mess if they keep trying to go back and work that product. You have to touch it twice and move on--roll it once against the grain, then roll it with the grain and move on. For larger areas like floors, a 2K product ideally requires 2 people to keep the job moving before the edges start curing. Some contractors will be accustomed to using flooring coatings with a squeegee, t-bar type of implement to move it around, and that's just not the best approach with Loba's water-based products. You preferably need to use their specified roller to get the proper coverage. On a stairwell you could probably do some brush work, but you need a really super soft brush like a Purdy Extra Soft to avoid leaving brush marks. You can message me through my profile, and I'd be happy to talk with you in person more about your situation. I would also advise against going with the super-matte finishes. Everyone seems to want that these days, but I can tell you that a bit of sheen or even gloss is going to hold up better for you in terms of the longevity. Loba is a really strong flooring coating that should give you around 30 years of durability, but the semi-gloss or gloss may look better longer as the flooring is used, and that is true of virtually any coating brand. Also with matte, most coating specialists recommend to wait and put that on as the last coat with the gloss underneath or else you could end up with a cloudy finish. These coatings are all made to be clear, and the way that they make them matte is they add a diffusing particle in there to make it more cloudy.

Ciranova ? Pink Blocker can be used with any competitors brand stain. I have not experienced any issue. You do need to buff with a maroon pad prior to applying a stain with other manufacturer's WB PU. I have not applied any other WB except for Ciranova's own WB PU over Pink blocker. No time for experimenting. Pink Blocker is a reactive stain. It is water soluble. Ciranova has a binder in their invisible line finishes : Ecofix plus, Woodlook Plus and Oculto. It helps prevent reactivating the stain and moving the color around. Reactive stain can be applied after pink blocker. Still needs buffing with maroon pad. You can use the regular reactive stain on red oak. It will not be as intense as if, it was applied onto white oak. Aquavintage is a two part reactive stain. hardwax oil , oil poly or wb poly can be applied. If, using WB poly, use one of Ciranova's invisible poly. Ecofix for light natural colors. Woodlook for whites and grays and Oculto for dark tone reactive stains. It is water soluble, competitors WB PU will move finish around. If, you want a WB system that looks like a oil finish. Ciranova's invisible line is what you want. It will look as natural or raw as can be with the protection of a WB system. For added protection, you can do two coats of their invisible finish and two coats of Fortico. Fortico is comparable to Bona Traffic HD and Loba's Supra AT. You can top coat Ciranova's invisible finishes with competitors WB finishes. That will help keep cost down. Only downside, if, you run into issues. The tech support will not help you. Use your own discretion. Unico is the same as RMC. It's a single coat oil system with the added benefits of being able to apply a WB PU over it. It's soft, top coat with one coat of Titan or two coats of Fortico for the added protection. Titan is better than RMC. Note: every manufacturer alters their binders slightly in their finishes to make it unique. It creates issues with other manufacturers products. You would need to test samples to make sure there are no finishing issues. I have used Ciranova's reactive stain with RMC and Pallmann's oil with no issues. I have tried applying a competitors WB PU over Ciranova's reactive stain with no success. It moves the color around. But when used with Ciranova's invisible PU, no issues. You can apply dewaxed shellac over the reactive stain and apply a competitor's WB PU or just apply oil base poly. Keep in mind oil base poly will turn yellow. For aged look, it does not look good. If, you want the aged look use Ciranova. you won't be disappointed, unless your guy does not know how to use it. For a stained look, you can use any other brand. The colors are all the same, besides Duraseal, which has more colors available than anyone.

@Chelsea Ivers I have only done door panels on sides of boxes, and they turned out reasonably well, but I am still having problems perfecting my finishing method. The doors and drawer fronts will be the next things I tackle. My latest issue is pock marks, otherwise known as fisheyes, that I think are appearing due to excessive humidity. I have created an enclosed painting booth that tends to trap vapor as it evaporates from the coating, and during a rainy week here where I live, I could not control the pock marks appearing in all layers of Loba 2K Supra AT even with opening a couple of windows that adjoin the booth. The WS EasyPrime did not have this issue, but again, that was the first layer, and successive coats in the 4-coat system released more humidity into the air. Other things can cause fisheyes like excessively thick coats or improper temperatures of the air and substrates, but I believe in my case it is humidity and will be trying to address this going forward with a robust dehumidifier inside the painting booth. I would be happy to personally speak to you about the process, but it would really be better if you started your own thread and posted questions there so that everyone searching for Loba application information in the future could benefit. Alternately, I just switched my settings over to allow you to be able to message me privately, but if I don't hear from you, I'll be switching that back off by the end of January 2021. You should be nervous, actually! This is a terrible coating to apply on cabinetry, and I highly encourage you to select a different finish! I'm in the middle of a project so already committed, but many times during the 16 coats I have already done with 6 to 8 hours of prep for each coat (with the exception of the hot coat of Supra 1 hour after primer) and at least half of the work left to go for a small kitchen, I have regretted ever signing up for this monumental task. If you haven't read my other thread on Loba for cabinetry and followed the links within the posts there, it would be of benefit to you: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5927222/loba-2k-supra-a-t-coating-questions#n=26 If you haven't yet purchased your Loba products, please visit the Envirolak website and check out their clear coat finishes. Envirolak would be much more suited to a cabinetry application. Envirolak is based in Canada and is gaining a solid reputation for robust, one-part waterborne coatings, including clear coats, that are created to be brushed and rolled on. If you don't have a dealer near you, you may contact Envirolak directly, and they'll be able to work with you to get their products. This would be the next-best thing in durability to a catalyzed 2K (two-part) finish such as the Loba 2K Supra A.T. Another alternative would be General Finishes. They do some beautiful one-part waterborne clear coats that are probably not as resilient as Envirolak's but are easy to apply with brush and roller, and many people who have posted in the Houzz forum have used General Finishes to satisfactorily coat their cabinetry projects. Here is one thread with more information about that: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5633128/most-natural-matte-satin-finish-white-oak-cabinets#n=33 One of the first problems you will encounter with Loba 2K Supra A.T., or indeed any of Loba's 2K coatings, is that they begin to set up at lightning speed. You must lay the coating down and walk off and leave it within no more than 10 minutes per piece, and really more like 3 minutes per each section of each piece. The learning curve is steep, and I'm still having problems getting my coating to lay down without brush marks as the quick drying occurs. Another problem you will encounter with Loba's products is that they are formulated with no vertical hang properties. All the leveling properties are horizontally self-leveling. So, any time you have something other than a perfectly flat surface, the Loba coating will drip, run, or puddle. I have created a complex system of taping off low-lying areas, then wiping the puddles with a microfiber cloth, then removing the tape with care not to drip onto finished sections, then painting the previously taped areas, then sponging off more puddles, then wiping out more puddles with craft swabs. This all happens within seconds as I move quickly with no wasted motion as the coating is already flash drying in surrounding areas. The process is difficult, stressful, and not entirely successful as I have many surface blemishes throughout the project thus far. I have had to coat each plane separately using several rounds of Frog Tape with plastic draping to mask off non-working sides. Please, if you have any other options, go with the other options. The best thing would be to order prefinished cabinetry or to have a professional spray the project with Milesi or Renner. You may learn more about professional spraying options at this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/diycabinetrefinishing The Loba 2K Supra A.T. with a 4-coat system including WS EasyPrime primer as the first coat is basically impervious. You'll never be able to refinish your cabinetry pieces unless they are flat surfaces that can be mechanically sanded. It's that tough. You may even have a hard time hand sanding between layers prior to full cure due to the incredible resilience. It's like dipping everything in plastic. The finish is beautiful, but I think in most cases that the durability is overkill for cabinetry. Loba's 2K products are designed to last 20 years on a flooring surface that you walk on during those decades. The Envirolak or General Finishes one-part waterborne products should give you plenty of years of wear without the headache of dealing with 2K application concerns. I hope this is helpful to you. If you would like to start a new thread with your own project and photos, please be sure to link it back here so we can follow and comment on your new thread.

Thanks very much for that G&S Floor Service, I’ve had a look at the product range on the official website and we don’t seem to have Nordicseal/Naturaseal as well as Bona Craft oil. I’ve attached a screenshot of the product range and Prim Intense for reference. I had the site inspection done this morning and he tells me that regardless of methods dark water damage marks can’t be removed or toned down much - he tells me bleaching causes problems down the track. 3 options were given to me: Bona White (1-2 coats) and then 1-2 coats of Bona Traffic (HD) - he seems more comfortable working with non-HD product as HD dries too fast he says. If 2 coats of Bona White are applied then only 1 coat of BT (HD). He tells me there is not much difference between HD and non-HD in terms of durability. Staining with non-Bona products as Bona staining products are not very good and then finished with BT (HD). He also doesn’t recommend going with this method as it takes much longer (1 full day working solo) - his boss tells me that for intensity of white effect Drifast stain and Prime Intense are not as good as 2 coats of Bona White. The guy who came out tells me Bona White can be applied by a roller and would be easier. Natural wood colour - by sanding and finish with 3 coats of BT or BT HD. I get the impression that they would want to do the job in an easier way since these guys work solo. They tell me that they’d take 1-1.5 weeks for 145sqm floor size.