Medium term floor decision

[Gothichome]

Thanks for the input Phill. It seems there is an even split between topcoating or oiling. There is no need to rush into this (well I rarely rush in to any project). I was hoping the general floor condition would make the decision for me. If it was all chopped up, then we would go with Linoleum or cork, some thing upper management would prefer. But if the floor was excellent, refinish as original, some thing upper management would be less keen on but could live with. In my view the floor is some were closer to refinishable than hideable. Refinish would most definitely be cheaper.

[Olson185]

Willa, thanks for the thoughts. My issue is we need to put some thing down that would help with the splintering and offer some protection from spills ect. Waterlox seems to be the favoured product of the pros. But all the applications have been on sanded floors. At this time I need some thing that I can put down now for the short term that would not limit our options.

When you write, "splintering", do you mean splitting of the wood or splinters are sticking up?

[Gothichome]

Olson, slivers.

IMG_0283.JPG (1.21 MiB) Viewed 379 times

[Willa]

Could you spread wood glue on the underside of the knot (that looks sort of like a knot but am low on wood terminology)using a popsicle stick, syringe, etc., then place a heavy weight on top for 24 - 48 hrs to make the separating layers act as one ? Then this area could be sanded smooth, in consideration of future floor refinishing ?

[phil]

try to look at the ends of the boards where they meet the walls. if it was previously sanded you will probably find evidence , like the floor may swoop upwards right near the wall ( under the baseboard) this may indicate it's already been sanded.

the picture shows flat grain. good quality flooring is usually cut so the edge grain shows. this helps eliminate issues like the separation in the photo. sanding should help if you have the wood and you kind of have to work with what's there. If you have one or two spots where it is really bad you could chop out a couple sections if you feel you need to.

I'd do a coat of oil and then maybe do some sanding with about 100 grit wet or dry wet with the oil, then go to about 320 grit or so. that would help with the sock catchers. you could also use a bit of wood filler if you want, to fill the voids.

full sanding would look better but i know sometimes you have to pic the time as it is fairly upsetting for the household. you have to clear the room and make dust etc. nicer when you can have the doors open..

the varied opinions are good! pick the ones you like.. if we all just agree on everything that's no fun you could do poly or paint or even wax and still refinish, if you sand you'll have to take off quite a bit to level it anyway.
just dont' use anything with silicone.

I had some floors that had white mastic. I got that off but I had to use a little pick to get every bit of the white slivers out from between the cracks as it really shows and I didn't' want that locked under the finish.

when you sand, the cracks form a 90 degree angle and those can be sharp corners. you can fill some of the cracks if you want to. depending on the grain and the width of the cracks it might be worse on some floors. you need to allow for wood movement so the floor needs some cracks but usually they have shrunk more than they will ever grow to again.

I like to remove baseboards, replace any bad boards, drum sand, rent the edger, then do almost all the filling. then I rent the big pad sander and that levels out the floor. then maybe some hand sanding and hand scraping and fill any other cracks I dont' like. .
if the putty doesn't match or if it looks obvious I fix that before the poly touches it.
sometimes if the filler needs to cover larger gaps I scratch grain lines into the filler , then use a different color of filler to fill the grain lines. this hides the filler better since wood is never a solid tone. If the putty has grain lines it helps a lot. sometimes I loosely blend a couple of filler colors to make it not uniform, or when I apply it I mix two or three shades and where I apply it I observe how dark the surrounding area of that spot is.


then I use dainish oil, if there are marks and spots where my putty doesn't look good after the dainish oil pops the grain, I fix that.. it's important that the filler color matches with the oil on it. the oil changes the way the wood looks a lot and it affects the filler color differently so you have to take that into account.

If I see issues like for example marks from the rollers on the edger, they show like a sore thumb after the first coat of oil but I can still sand and scrape and fill at that point and just put more oil.. ill dig out putty and replace it if I dont like how it looks. one coat of oil won't prevent that.

after 2 coats of oil I might add just a tiny bit of stain to the oil if i want it slightly darker.. then more oil and when you are happy with the look and the putty match and there are no roller marks or shoe prints or anything bad , then I lock it in with three coats of poly, or if you dont' want poly just use more dainish oil. or you could use tung oil if you like that more..

If you use poly I think its important that you are really happy with the look. If not you can still work on it with just a coat or two of oil and then just put more oil and you wont' see any real change over that area. you can still dig out and replace putty or scrape the floor or sand in any hollows you might have, but if you do poly, make sure you are happy with the whole thing before you do that.

those rough spots. if they still show after initial sanding you can use filler and then sand and that will help too. dont' put filler where you dont' need it. if you have a little hollow sometimes you are better to leave the hollow than have a big patch of putty. If I fill gaps I put masking tape either side then fill with a putty knife and pull the tape off right away. itll mound up a bit - good it'll shrink too and you want some putty to sand off. I also punch a hole in a bit of masking tape and move that from nail hole to nail hole and use it like a mask to prevent filler where I dont' need it.

if you have some bad splinters, rather than pulling them out, you could try to get a little glue under the splinter using a very thin artists spatula. then put some weight on it overnight. that might help stabilize the area

[Mick_VT]

Thanks for the input Phill. It seems there is an even split between topcoating or oiling. There is no need to rush into this (well I rarely rush in to any project). I was hoping the general floor condition would make the decision for me. If it was all chopped up, then we would go with Linoleum or cork, some thing upper management would prefer. But if the floor was excellent, refinish as original, some thing upper management would be less keen on but could live with. In my view the floor is some were closer to refinishable than hideable. Refinish would most definitely be cheaper.

To be honest GH, on consideration I think I would head towards cork for a few reasons:

1. It would better please upper management (always good to be in favor there)
2. This is a kitchen and it would be a bit easier to keep clean / sanitary than boards with gaps
3. It will likely be less messy and time consuming than a full refinish of what is there
4. It is period appropriate

[phil]

cork would be fast and easy. would you still sand it so it isn't lumpy or would it show?

my living room has cork and I'll pull the carpet soon. I plan to sand but if my upper management is too tired of the renos I could leave it if it looks OK. It's got jute backing and some sort of paper under it. hopefully not asbestos paper.

Lily came up with the neat idea that I could use the cork to make panels on the walls so it would be wood strips with cork between. the idea is growing on me because i hate to throw it out and it might save needing to buy a lot of wainscott or whatever.. of course being a silly perfectionist I still needed to make the walls all micro smooth only to cover it later i even made it nice and flat where I'm putting the baseboards and trim. I can't help myself

Phil

[Mick_VT]

cork would be fast and easy. would you still sand it so it isn't lumpy or would it show?

Personally I would put a hardboard backing down first for a good smooth and sound substrate. It would also protect the flooring if at a later date you wanted to go in a different direction

[phil]

cost might be pretty close either way. renting the sanders, the paper , the oil or poly etc could be about the same as the cork. the cork would be fast and a lot less dust.

perhaps an option might be to just do a quick drum sanding to flatten the floor then put paper or something, maybe some ugly discounted vinyl and cork on top. I'm thinking of the height difference.

I got a piece of more industrial rubber, or is it thick vinyl. it is grey. thought I'd use it on my porch but went with fiberglass. Aside from cork there probably are some nice options when you start looking at the type of flooring they would install in a commercial building. it's nicer if you dont need a joint but some is only available in certain widths. maybe someone that does commercial flooring would have leftovers since it isn't a huge area?
Someone here mentioned a type of flooring that had a cork surface but I think it was like 1 foot squares that click together like laminate flooring. you might also be able to still get some kinds of battleship linoleum in colors like green or red.

[Gothichome]

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.

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.