Medium term floor decision

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Mick_VT
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Re: Medium term floor decision

Post by Mick_VT »

Careful of the Bullseye shellac GH, if you use that you will not be able to poly or paint over the top if you decide to later, as it is not dewaxed. Their sealcoat product is, if you want to go with their stuff.
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Gothichome
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Re: Medium term floor decision

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Ya I know Mick, if paint or poly is the end product the hole floor will be sanded any how. The test area is in a high traffic area in front of the stove. Should be a good indicator of the wear I could expect.

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Re: Medium term floor decision

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the pre-mixed shellac has a shelf life of I think about 6 months to a year so I prefer the flakes or pucks, they will happily sit on the shelf for years beside the alcohol. If you get a precipitate of wax, just pour off the top and use that. I have a chunk of shellac that must be close to 100 years old, and it still looks like it would work. the pre-mixed might be fine if you know you'll use it all up.

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Re: Medium term floor decision

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Gothichome wrote:Ok, I thought I would do a very informal test. I have sanded the area around the knot posted earlier and its problematic feathering down to 120 grit and applied three suggested solutions for our floor delema.
Image
Working left to right, three coats of poly, three applications of tung oil and three coats of amber shellac. My goal is three fold, see how each wears, see how it looks on the floor and see how easy it it will sand out in a couple of weeks.
First thing that happened is the oil (in the middle) spread out well beyond my two inch test strip. The shellac behaved just as I would have had expected, I do like the colour though. The poly is still tacky sixteen ours after application.

Well folks, an update on my little kitchen floor experiment.
Image
The shellac test strip has barely changed in the last month, the oil has soaked in and you can see it starting to dry out and fade. The poly has started to wear, of the three I think the poly is a none starter, the oil has a better feel to the wood, has stabilized the dryness and lifting of the feathered grain. The shellac has allowed some raising of the grain, but the colour has stayed. The experiment continues.

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Re: Medium term floor decision

Post by Lily left the valley »

Thanks for the update.

We may eventually disinter some of our wood long layered over in the kitchen/dining, so this is of particular interest to me.

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Re: Medium term floor decision

Post by Texas_Ranger »

The point in using oil is to truly soak the floor until it can't absorb any more oil and then remove any excess from the surface. Your test patch isn't really what you'd get from a full "oil bath". I'm very fond of the end result but oiling is definitely labour-intensive. In order to get any sort of sheen you also need to sand to a very fine grit, at least 120 paper and 120+150 mesh on an orbital sander. I think in some rooms we went up to 150 with the paper and followed up with a 180-grit mesh.

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Re: Medium term floor decision

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Another floor experiment update.
Image
We added some grey paint as a possible option. Decide the grey paint is the amber shellac, it's holding up well. Next in line is the blo, really starting fade, and on the far right, the poly is still doing well. No real ware showing on any of the test areas, although the oiled strip still maintains a smooth finish with no lifting of the feathered graining.

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Re: Medium term floor decision

Post by phil »

I know it seems like I am being negative to say it but the paint looks terrible to me and it would be near impossible to clean off.

You could try some wood bleach. some places seem to sell it as a liquid, Just get the crystals, you just add water. I think that would make a dramatic improvement, then put your finish on after. I'd really hate to see you paint it but of course it is your house and your decision. Its just not a decision you can really make twice. If you had to paint it you could lay thin plywood or something and paint that ?

the below is from here:
from here: http://antiquerestorers.com/Articles/je ... bleach.htm

===================
Oxalic Acid

Oxalic acid is unique in that it will remove a certain type of stain formed when iron and moisture come into contact with tannic acid in the wood. Some woods like oak, cherry and mahogany naturally contain a high amount of tannic acid and a black stain is formed when the wood gets wet with tap water (tap water contains iron as a trace mineral). A wet glass or leaky vase left on these woods will produce a black ring. Nails and screws will form black rings around the head if the wood gets wet. If tap water is used to wet unfinished oak and mahogany, small gray spots may form on the surface of the wood. Oxalic acid will remove this discoloration without affecting the natural color of the wood.


Oxalic acid is also used to lighten the graying effects of outdoor exposure. It is the ingredient in most deck "brighteners". Used on furniture that has been stripped for re-finishing, it will lighten the color and re-establish an even tone to the wood, particularly oak.
====================

you should be able to find it locally, it's not expensive, but as an example...

https://www.amazon.com/Oxalic-Acid-Blea ... B001F2US4U

my kitchen floor looked kind of like that after years of spills that somehow crept under the flooring and so the nails were pretty rusty and lots of black stains. I treated it with the solution , stains were gone. I did a little coating of danish oil after and put a teeny bit of stain in to make it darken just slightly in order to make the treated area match the tone of adjacent floors. I found it did lighten the floor a little but it's easy to go darker.

its normal for the first couple coats of oil to get sucked in it takes several applications to get any kind of a finish happening.

I'd sand and then use the wood bleach before refinishing but if you really dont' want to sand you could still give the wood bleach a try. That floor has a lot of stains from mistreatment of whatever finish it did have but you can sand it as long as you have some thickness left.

try this:
- stick some card stock, or a business card into the crack. push it down until it bottoms out then without removing it from the crack fold it over. then pull it out. you will see how thick the flooring is above the tongue. thats how much you have to work with. that's the thickness of the material above the tongue. you can easily check a few spots all over the floor to see if there is enough to sand.

problem with paint, you can get it off with stripper but the paint between the cracks is difficult to get out. If you really are bent on painting I'd at least do a few coats of shellac first so it can be removed, still a pain but a whole lot easier with the shellac under it.

Ill go back under my rock now , I'm sure I should shut up before I insult someone else who has already resorted to painting their floors, Yea some like it. yea painted floors date back as far as paint, I know.. It still makes me cringe. I love wood ! someone more eloquent could put it more politely ;-)

if sanding is too much of an encumbrance you could lay a laminate floating floor in about a day. and there is better stuff or cheap stuff, but a floor like that with nice long boards would cost thousands today.

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Re: Medium term floor decision

Post by phil »

I had to pop back out for a moment ;-)
as mick suggested if you do cork laying a backer.

I pulled the cork up from my living room. Jute backed stuff. what they did was lay a water soluble glue, maybe wallpaper paste? then fairly heavy card stock, then more water soluble glue, then the cork flooring.

when I removed it I pulled and it split the paper backer. half stuck tot he flooring half to the floor.
I wet the floor, actually pured a few gallons down with a garden watering can, left it an hour and it came off easy, then I took the cork flooring outside and flipped it upside down and went at it with a stiff broom and a hose. i got all the cardboard off so I can use the flooring again or pass it on to someone who will.

I think this is a good methoid as it wasn't too harmful to the floor or the flooring.

but to answer the original question, yes go for it you can oil the floor, then you can still sand it with no issues when you sand you'll take off the thickness of a quarter, the thickness of a dime at the very minimum things dont' penetrate that far, but the sandpaper will have a struggle with paint and it won't clean all the paint out of the cracks, you'd have a real struggle with that.

in my kitchen I think it had some flooring put down originally so it wasn't sanded or finished. back then having a long plank virgin timber floor wasn't anything to even mention. of course your floors are wood they all are , nothing special. and painting them wasnt' a big issue because at worst you could run to the lumber store for more of it.
but today it is really a beautiful feature of an old house and worth preserving. my kitchen floor looked horrible but sandpaper does wonders. once you cut through the first bit it's fresh wood down there and it'll sand up beautifully. I totally get it if it just isn't something you would want to take on at the moment but there are other options to painting that nice floor. the quickest is to lay something over top. at one point I bought a bunch of interlocking rubber tiles and I have moved them room to room as I have been working. they were great and not expensive. easy to do.

Phil

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Re: Medium term floor decision

Post by Mick_VT »

After my experiences with Rubio Monocoat, I'd suggest that as a good option for your floor here GH
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