Hi

I have a new softwood, I think pine, banister.

We want to paint the newels, newel posts and spindles white but we want to varnish the hand rail. This is because we had this in our last new build house and thought it was nice.

The builder thinks the hand rail will go that horrible orange colour that pine does after a few years.

Does anyone know how to stop this , do new builds use wood stain.

Thanks

are you sure its pine ? most half decent softwood handrails are hemlock (which is a coniferous softwood I think but a bit harder than most pines) hemlock is often used as you can get long straight lengths knot free and its less prone to twisting / warping etc as it ages . Rather than varnish you could use danish oil or a woodstain. Problem with varnish is tha it sits on top of the surface and is more likely to chip over time . I did a hemlock staircase an rails about 8 years ago - hemlock handrails and pine stairs and newels and stained it with 3 coats ( american cherry colour) and it still looks as good as new . The pine and the hemlock took the colour very similarly and there has been no noticeable change in evenness though the grain has mellowed / darkened a bit which is a good thing.

I would go with your gut feel and keep the wood on show - maybe a light woodstain stain

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