I recently pulled up the wall-to-wall carpeting in a 1955 ranch house to expose hardwood floors. I'd like to spruce up the floors without radical sanding and refinishing. I don't mind a few "character" flaws but would like to restore the beauty of the oak. The good news is that they have been protected since the 1960s by the carpet so the floors are, in general, in pretty good shape; the bad news is that a couple of little dogs who had lived in the house demonstrated behavior that was, shall we say, less than exemplary.
The dog stains (not as bad as I expected) seem to be responding to plain old chlorine bleach; I also have pool shock which I read is effective in bleaching wood but I haven't had to resort to it yet.
I worked on the first section - the hallway - today. The wood has been cleaned with mineral spirits, hand-sanded with #80 followed by #120. A coat of blopentine (Jade, I owe you big time for educating me about this!) has been applied. It looks pretty darn good. When this is dry, my plan is to buff with steel wool and apply a coat of 1/3 turpentine, 1/3 BLO and 1/3 spar varnish. I have found several references to this mixture on seemingly reputable sites. The varnish is supposed to make the finish more durable and give it a bit of sheen.
Here is (finally) my question. What would you recommend for a varnish additive? I've found two types of spar varnish: polyurethane based and tung-oil based. I've been warned that polyurethane wears in such a way that the whole floor needs to be redone. Will this be the case if I add poly spar to the mix or does this change its character? Then there's the tung-oil-based spar varnish. Won't mixing tung and BLOs be redundant? Should I then just thin down the tung-based spar varnish with turpentine and leave out the BLO in the final coat? Advice from someone with more experience than I (which means anybody) is greatly appreciated!
Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
Last edited by Manalto on Fri Jul 19, 2019 12:22 am, edited 3 times in total.
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PaulJohnson
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Re: Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
You are definitely on the right path.
An option for the dark stain from the dogs is oxalic acid. I would recommend using that rather than pool chemicals. Try an inconspicuous spot first and go with a light mixture — Gloves of course.
I did a mix in our old house of Blo-Min Spirits-Polyurethane. That is fine for a first coat. My experience is that you need additional coats of poly to protect the finish. My course has always been - 1/2 min spirits 1/2 poly, then 1/4 min spirits 3/4 poly.
For the oak floor in our current house I used a ROS to remove the old finish, then my poly mix - 3 coats. I chose to leave the water stains for character (read didn’t want to deal with it).
An option for the dark stain from the dogs is oxalic acid. I would recommend using that rather than pool chemicals. Try an inconspicuous spot first and go with a light mixture — Gloves of course.
I did a mix in our old house of Blo-Min Spirits-Polyurethane. That is fine for a first coat. My experience is that you need additional coats of poly to protect the finish. My course has always been - 1/2 min spirits 1/2 poly, then 1/4 min spirits 3/4 poly.
For the oak floor in our current house I used a ROS to remove the old finish, then my poly mix - 3 coats. I chose to leave the water stains for character (read didn’t want to deal with it).
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Re: Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
PaulJohnson wrote:My experience is that you need additional coats of poly to protect the finish.
Have you found that using polyurethane this way eliminates the concern for uneven wear?
Thanks for the tip on muriatic acid.
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PaulJohnson
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Re: Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
No issues for us on uneven wear. We also do not wear shoes in the house.
Poly does yellow over time. Some call it a patina.
Correction to your comment - oxalic acid, not muriatic. I have only used muriatic acid on brick and stone.
Poly does yellow over time. Some call it a patina.
Correction to your comment - oxalic acid, not muriatic. I have only used muriatic acid on brick and stone.
Re: Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
PaulJohnson wrote:Correction to your comment - oxalic acid, not muriatic. I have only used muriatic acid on brick and stone.
Thanks.
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1918ColonialRevival
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Re: Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
Muriatic acid also does a fair job of artificially aging ferrous metals. Agree with Paul - I wouldn't use it on wood.
Re: Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
1918ColonialRevival wrote:Muriatic acid also does a fair job of artificially aging ferrous metals. Agree with Paul - I wouldn't use it on wood.
I wasn't planning to. It was just a moment of confusion. I'm blaming it on the acid.
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phil
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Re: Rejuvenating a Hardwood Floor
my recipe is this , set any nails that show and sand the floor, You may get away with not , if so great.
I do the drum sanding first. then putty all the cracks bigger than a credit card and fill any holes from nails I had to drive down.
then I rent the edger use that for any edges.
next I rent the pad sander, that evens things out and produces a pretty nice finish. you can use a card scraper over the whole floor if you want it relly perfect. I do that after the sanders are back at the store.
Next I do clear danish oil.
then I use danish oil and sandpaper and I mix in a tad of stain but very little if I want it a bit darker. I like to do 3 or four coats of oil let it soak recoat , make it tough and adjust any color if needed.
when I am happy that the putty matches , the floors dont show signs from sanding and it is the best I can get, then and only then I use poly. three or four coats not one. i sand lightly in between. these coats I lay down over a 24 hour period to allow them to chemically knit together. it means for a long day but if you let it cure it wont' chemically knit properly. You can sand and recoat and it will stick but best when all the coats really knit. this makes it tougher.
great results so far as wear. we do wear shoes and they really do not scratch easily. You can recoat poly any time , just scuff sand first.
i only use oil based poly. the water based might be more clear and less yellow and may not allow the sunlight to naturally darken the floor.
If you prefer you can use tung oil or linseed and turps. It wont' really protect the floor that much but you can hide all the scratches in a year with another coat. If you want o just try putting oil on it it wont prevent you from deciding to sand the floor later.
I would not advise to add any stain to the floor, let the grain and beauty of the wood show instead of coating it with pigments that hide the beautiful grain patterns. but thats a preference. of course you can use shellac instead if you prefer but it's not near as tough as poly. if you put a coat of stain you have something to scratch through and reveal the lighter wood. My floors were never stained and I don't think most were.
I look at it this way, If I am refinishing the floor I want it to look as best I can and then I dont want to sand and I want to protect what is there and aside from epoxy , oil based poly is the toughest. it's going to last the rest of my lifetime.
If you sand you need to bite through into fresh wood or dont bother sanding , because if you sand lightly you'll see that any spots that are higher get lighter and that's not attractive. Sanding will remove at least 1mm likely 2 mm. You can only do that to a floor once or twice.
a more conservative approach may be not to sand, to keep the floors thick. many of mine were so bad this wasn't a good option. I did my whole house in stages. some areas needed large patches , I used reclaimed fir and it blended right in. that sort of patchwork makes sanding more necessary.
my floors are fir, they do dent if you drop heavy objects, I have no signs of wear through or any serious scratches. we do wear our shoes a lot Im in and out a lot. If people are seeing poly come off they probably aren't following all the above steps. putting oil on the floor first, then poly toughens it more than only poly. harder woods wont dent so much but changing that isn't really an option.
I do the drum sanding first. then putty all the cracks bigger than a credit card and fill any holes from nails I had to drive down.
then I rent the edger use that for any edges.
next I rent the pad sander, that evens things out and produces a pretty nice finish. you can use a card scraper over the whole floor if you want it relly perfect. I do that after the sanders are back at the store.
Next I do clear danish oil.
then I use danish oil and sandpaper and I mix in a tad of stain but very little if I want it a bit darker. I like to do 3 or four coats of oil let it soak recoat , make it tough and adjust any color if needed.
when I am happy that the putty matches , the floors dont show signs from sanding and it is the best I can get, then and only then I use poly. three or four coats not one. i sand lightly in between. these coats I lay down over a 24 hour period to allow them to chemically knit together. it means for a long day but if you let it cure it wont' chemically knit properly. You can sand and recoat and it will stick but best when all the coats really knit. this makes it tougher.
great results so far as wear. we do wear shoes and they really do not scratch easily. You can recoat poly any time , just scuff sand first.
i only use oil based poly. the water based might be more clear and less yellow and may not allow the sunlight to naturally darken the floor.
If you prefer you can use tung oil or linseed and turps. It wont' really protect the floor that much but you can hide all the scratches in a year with another coat. If you want o just try putting oil on it it wont prevent you from deciding to sand the floor later.
I would not advise to add any stain to the floor, let the grain and beauty of the wood show instead of coating it with pigments that hide the beautiful grain patterns. but thats a preference. of course you can use shellac instead if you prefer but it's not near as tough as poly. if you put a coat of stain you have something to scratch through and reveal the lighter wood. My floors were never stained and I don't think most were.
I look at it this way, If I am refinishing the floor I want it to look as best I can and then I dont want to sand and I want to protect what is there and aside from epoxy , oil based poly is the toughest. it's going to last the rest of my lifetime.
If you sand you need to bite through into fresh wood or dont bother sanding , because if you sand lightly you'll see that any spots that are higher get lighter and that's not attractive. Sanding will remove at least 1mm likely 2 mm. You can only do that to a floor once or twice.
a more conservative approach may be not to sand, to keep the floors thick. many of mine were so bad this wasn't a good option. I did my whole house in stages. some areas needed large patches , I used reclaimed fir and it blended right in. that sort of patchwork makes sanding more necessary.
my floors are fir, they do dent if you drop heavy objects, I have no signs of wear through or any serious scratches. we do wear our shoes a lot Im in and out a lot. If people are seeing poly come off they probably aren't following all the above steps. putting oil on the floor first, then poly toughens it more than only poly. harder woods wont dent so much but changing that isn't really an option.