dpb wrote:

Finish it same as if it were a wood floor -- it is.

Right. (It sometimes takes me a bit to get my head screwed on the right
way.)

Red oak in particular being so porous needs a paste filler/sanding
sealer before staining and finishing to fill the open pores.

What kind of paste filler? Are you my english friend from
comp.lang.fortran? If so, you might not know what Lowe's and Home Depot
are and might not know our brands.

I shaped it roughly tonight. Gave it a cursory sanding on all visible
surfaces. I chucked up the bit for the router and thought i might forge
ahead, but I thought/think I want to take some time before I do that.

These clients are out of town now, so I can experiment a little to find
best methods before needing to execute.

Use a good quality floor varnish of your choice; polyurethane or no.

I'm trained as a union carpenter who now needs to scab because he can't
lift a ton of rock every day any more and needs to keep a roof over his
head, so they didn't ever teach us anything about paint. I have a
simple question.

What makes stain, varnish, and polyurethane different? Which can you
mix? What do you have to apply first?
--
Uno