Greetings;
This is a first time for me in this part of the forums but I have to do some work on brand new white pine basement stairs and want to do it right and ONCE!!
We have just completely redid our old basement,(new oil tank, boiler, painting and laid a new floor. We had ripped out the 97 year old stairs and had some new ones installed by a professional carp. to bring it up to code (besides I am a lousy carpenter!).
Whenever I work with bare metal, whether paint stripped or new, I always wipe down the metal with mineral spirits to clean the metal before any painting. I noticed on the new stairs that there is a feel of fine sawdust still on it even after sweeping with a very fine hand brush and using a shop vac. and a microfiber cloth. What can I wipe the surface with that will help to clean the wood before we stain it? Also is it safe to use a polyurethane on the stairs without creating a slip factor?
May sound silly these questions but as I stated I am really in a new world with this. Today the stairs, Tomorrow the windows!!!! One stairs down and three to go ! Along with a gazillion windows!

 

You can blow the stairs off with a air nozzle and a air compressor... but you don't need to get too crazy about getting every last bit since you will be wiping the stain off with cloths, you will be wiping up anything you have missed. I think there are millions of stairs that are polyed, and yeah I suppose a few stupid people in socks might fall but whose fault is that. People slip on rugs too.

You will be doing light sanding between coats of poly, and so you will be doing a lot of dusting with tack cloths. The air nozzle isn't the best thing when you get to applying the finish because you don't want a bunch of airborne dust getting in your next coat.

 

Xsleeper;
Thanks for the reply. I'll go to the old air compressor once I have everything resorted and I find it. Doing this project required ripping out ALL of my old storage cabinets so everything is stored (squirreled) into little piles ALL over the place!

 

Any coating [paint or poly] has the propensity to make the steps slick BUT that is one of the reasons you have [or should] a handrail. Your stairs once finished won't be any different than all of the hardwood stairs across the country with a poly finish.