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Refinishing/Restoring oak floor in a kitchen, need some advice. It is original oak strip flooring dating from the early 1940’s. It was covered with 1/4″ plywood, tile, and later vinyl sheet. Where I hsve removed the plywood & tile it is in reasonably good condition, but I expect to have to patch in areas where it has been watersoaked, etc. and have some salvaged flooring saved for that.
If someone has done this before, I need advice on finishing products. Since it is in a kitchen I want it sealed as well as possible. I have refinished the other floors in the house with oil-base satin polyurethane and know that there will be occasional gaps and there will be minor cracks at most joints with structural movement and seasonal moisture changes, although I am in a climate with very low humidity year around. I need to seal those gaps and cracks to keep spilled food out and water when I step in the cat’s water dish, or worse.
I have been in restaurants where old wood floors have the gaps filled with what appears to be a resin. I have looked at various epoxy products available from suppliers such as West Systems, but I am unsure about the finished appearance and if it will allow some movement in the joints. My experience with that type of product is fiberglass on a cedar strip canoe and I would consider that too brittle to allow floor movement. I would like the finish to match the adjoining satin poly reasonably well.
I would appreciate any advice or previous experience.
Thanks, GeneB
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Gene, if it's a few gaps/cracks you can use a solvent based wood-filler, after you do the stripping, but before final sanding. Finish with Oil-based Poly, three or more coats.
*1. Cracks and Joints. I'm unsure how well you can really fill these. The really big holes and gaps can be filled with a wood filler to keep the big rocks out. There will be movement and joints between boards will open and close and I suspect if you put in a filler you'll have a joint between filler and board, it just may be a little slimmer. Maybe the best thing is just to let the finish wick into the smallest joints.2. Finish. My experience has been that the K. floor will want refinishing much quicker than the rest of the house particularly if you wash it with water more frequently. Traffic also tends to be higher. In the old days "Swedish" type finishes were supposed to have the advantage of being topable with a new coat without going down to bare wood again (as long as you had not waxed). Supposedly some of the new water borne polys have the same characteristic. I'd check out those claims carefully. Don't know if the newer solvent based polys allow it. The water borne manufacturers tout their stuff as having the best wear resistance in commercial settings, don't know if I believe that.
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Refinishing/Restoring oak floor in a kitchen, need some advice. It is original oak strip flooring dating from the early 1940's. It was covered with 1/4" plywood, tile, and later vinyl sheet. Where I hsve removed the plywood & tile it is in reasonably good condition, but I expect to have to patch in areas where it has been watersoaked, etc. and have some salvaged flooring saved for that.
If someone has done this before, I need advice on finishing products. Since it is in a kitchen I want it sealed as well as possible. I have refinished the other floors in the house with oil-base satin polyurethane and know that there will be occasional gaps and there will be minor cracks at most joints with structural movement and seasonal moisture changes, although I am in a climate with very low humidity year around. I need to seal those gaps and cracks to keep spilled food out and water when I step in the cat's water dish, or worse.
I have been in restaurants where old wood floors have the gaps filled with what appears to be a resin. I have looked at various epoxy products available from suppliers such as West Systems, but I am unsure about the finished appearance and if it will allow some movement in the joints. My experience with that type of product is fiberglass on a cedar strip canoe and I would consider that too brittle to allow floor movement. I would like the finish to match the adjoining satin poly reasonably well.
I would appreciate any advice or previous experience.
Thanks, GeneB