Seeking advice from the pros here. Sorry, long post, but . . .
I am finishing up a series of projects involving the entire upper floor of our home, including flooring, some cabinets, quite a bit of custom made molding, off-the-shelf trim, crown, paneling (all red oak), etc. Basically, the final step is finishing all the trim and install. The wife liked the idea of a very dark brown stain. After spending what seems like a fortune getting samples, we converged on Varathane "fast dry" premium stain, with a color called Kona. Fine. Stained all the plywood, applied some wipe-on oil-based poly after a couple of days, and it turned out fantastic (per SWMBO). Great. Next, after sanding for days all the solid wood trim, I followed the same schedule. After the stain, the wood took a great, rich dark color. Seemed dry to touch, not tacky at all. Applied the wipe on poly, and it just rubbed the finish nearly off. At best, with very gentle application, there were some serious streaks. I thought it might be acceptable, so I completed all the oak with this. The end result is horrible and not acceptable, so I tried to sand off the stain, etc with to no avail. It was worth it to me to get this right. So I bought a lot of replacement trim, sanded and stained again, and waited now two weeks before I touched it with the poly. The results were almost worse: the dark stain just wiped off. I tried some brush on poly, which worked a little better, but not great. So, back to getting even more trim (fortunately I have not ruined my custom-made work). I've got it sanded, but I am a little gun-shy about trying something new and spending even more money with this seemingly easy task. My ideas are
1. Use a water-based poly (limited experience)
2. buy a sprayer, and spray finish (this would require some purchases that I hope to avoid and I have little experience with spraying)
3. Follow the sage advice from someone here and do something else
I don't think I can use a new stain, since all the panels are already up, and look great with this Kona color.
Been doing trim work, and the like for 15 years, and never had a problem like this. Have used Varathane and poly together, albeit not the "premium fast dry variety" together for even longer. Anybody have any ideas? They would be greatly appreciated.
tldr: oil-based stain and oil-based poly worked great on oak plywood, horrible on solid wood trim. Ideas?
Thanks