I just finished refinishing a hundred year old floor. The floor was old growth fir tounge and groove and was the most unpleasent job of my entire renovation(including roof tearoff)! Anyways, the floor turned out awesome and I decided to lay down oil based satin varathane. I currently have four coats down and am wondering is that enough. My fear is if I add more coats I will lose some of the apperance and luster of the grain.
Any thoughts??????
Framing the floor inside a crawlspace foundation keeps a gable-end addition close to grade.
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Replies
normally three is enough. Rarely a need for four.
too many, too fast can prevent the middle coats from curing hard by denying them the needed oxygen.
Stop while you are ahead and start enjoying your floors.
Oh, and welcome to the CVG cult.
CVG
Clear
Vertical
Grain
FIR
CVG
Methinks..........Clear, Vertical Grain; i.e., clear , quarter sawn wood
Jim
Edit: this site is sooooo wacky anymore. Piffin's reply does not show, I post, piffin's reply shows after 2 weeks........
Floor refinishing guys have always told me three coats - first two coats should always be clear gloss for durability regardless of what the third coat is (satin, semi, gloss, etc.). Any validity to that?
Benito
The only validity is that many have said that. If there are any studies concerning that prognosis, I've never read one. It could be the same as oak is "hardest". In the scheme of things, we know it's way harder than pine-but marginally harder than other species. At least there's been some "tests" published by legitimate testing bureaus.
One caution is that if your application of the last coat is not perfect, the gloss will show through llightly if it hasn't been substantially covered continuously. And some customers "could" be anal enough to get there cheeks down on the floor to pick it up.
It is a fact that there is a higher percentage of solids in high gloss, but I can;t see how that woiuld make it wear any better if the top wear coat is satin or flat, nor do I see that another 3-5% of solids would make much of a diff in a 20 year floor coating.