Stain removal or cover up on hickory

[Larry Uher]

I have a hickory floor I am refinishing. The pro couldn't get all the reddish brown stain sanded off. Said it was in too deep. There are a few spots here and there. The sanded floor is a light tan shade of hickory. The red spots will show up terrible when a clear stain is put on. Is there anything I can use to tint, cover, or stain the red spots? I have some Minwax hickory gel stain I used on my bathroom cabinets. Would that work?
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/2189/floor3jpg.jpg

[Scott Holmes]

Have you tried bleach?

[Larry Uher]

I tried lightly bleaching it. Didn't help any. Would a heavy soaking maybe do it? I did use by 3 inch belt sander on one board, and yes, the stains are in there deep.
They look black in the pic, but when I put a light coat of water on it, I can see they are red from the stain. A tan cover up wouldn't look too great, but it would probably be better than the red.

[phil harold]

Two part bleach?
Part A is Sodium Hydroxide which opens up the woods pores and reacts with the Hydrogen Peroxide in Part B.

not all stains are removable...

[Rich Engelhardt]

How large an area are you talking about?

It's not all that difficult to remove the damaged pieces of flooring and replace them.
It's a bit tricky, but, it's not all that hard.
Check inside the closets and see if the same flooring was used there.
If it was, you can remove the flooring from inside a closet to make the repair, then replace the closet floor with new.
The closet door forms a trasnition.

If the stains are pet urine, then there's nearly nothing you can do to get them out & replacement of the damaged pieces is your only option.
I'm sort of surprised the floor finisher didn't suggest that.

[Larry Uher]

>you can remove the flooring from inside a closet to make the repair
No way. It is glued on 5 sides and has to be chiseled out. Costs about $20 per 3.5 inch board foot.
Probably the best solution but expensive. There is no 3.5 inch available so 4 inch would have to
be cut down. The stains are wood stain as I described above. But I think I would try some hard
sanding before I replaced the boards. It seems to be working on the smaller spots.

[Peter J Lee]

At least in the picture, it doesn't look that bad to me. Old hardwood floors tend to have various, uh, histories that show.

[Rich Engelhardt]

No way. It is glued on 5 sides and has to be chiseled outI hate when that happens...

[Larry Uher]

I am hitting it pretty hard with the small belt sander, and most spots are coming out. There will be a few about 3/4 inch diameter that look real deep and won't come out.