In this short video Sally Warburton, a director of leading wood floor business, Ted Todd & Sons, talks about the types of finish that can used to seal wood floors.
Video Transcript
Hi, I’m Sally Warbuton from Ted Todd & Sons and I’m going to talk about floor finishing on behalf of floorideas.co.uk.
There are so many different finishes to choose from these days and it has gone such a long way from the old varnishes which used to yellow and harden floors.
There’s water based lacquer which as its name suggests is based on water, it doesn’t actually change the colour of the floor so you get a very natural finish. There are also spirit based lacquers which give timber particularly oak, a beautiful golden colour. We now have third generation lacquers which look like an oil but actually they are a lacquer and they are fabulous. Hard wax oil is a great natural matt-looking finish for a wood floor, it dries quickly and although it’s not as durable as lacquer it’s very easy to spot repair and re-apply oil.
Before you finish your floor you need to think about preparation, preparation, preparation, it’s a good idea to lightly sand your floor with say 80 to 100 grit paper, vacuum to remove all the dust and then vacuum again.
Oils can be applied by using a very fine gloss paint roller, a soft cloth or a pad and it dries fairly quickly you can get two coats on in 24 hours. With lacquers it’s slightly different, again you need to vacuum the floor and remove all the dust and apply the first coat, again you can use a roller or a pad and then after it’s dry just check to see if it’s raised the grain again, if it has you need to abrade and that’s the only difference really with lacquers you need to abrade between coats. There are some like the third generation lacquer that you actually don’t need to but the preparation is so, so important, so no dust, no fluffy bits and you get a fantastic finish.
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