Hi All.

I recently have been building a tassie oak herringbone benchtop for our study and wished to stain to match with other furniture. When cutting the timber i noticed quite a variation in hardness of the timber from very dense and hard to almost pine like in weight and being herringbone the harder and softer pieces are spread throughout the top.

Ive been considering using a wood conditioner but have noted most are recommended for softwoods like pine.

Can you advise if you recommend using a wood conditioner on hardwood like tassie oak? Im leaning towards using it to avoid too much stain take up on the end grains of the herringbone and for overall consistency but wasnt sure if there might be negatives....eg will the conditioner saturate a hardwood and therefore end up not taking up any of the stain?

Any thoughts appreciated.