Gloss laquer on cyp pine floor WITHOUT colour change

[Danster]

Gday all,

10 years ago I sanded my cypress pine floor and laquered with Watyl 2-pack. Lovely.

10 years on, and I want to completely strip/sand off the 2-pack and get back to bare timber.
The finish I want is to get the EXACT colour of the sanded wood with a gloss laquer, sort of if you just popped a glass sheet over the floor without any change of colour of the wood.

As far as I know, any estapol, laquer, or other finish will give the timber a darker colour, as it did 10 years ago, sort of like a honey/tan sort of colour. Although nice, I don't want that.

Is there any product which will just give me the natural colour of fresh wood with a nice gloss coat? Surely there must...

cheers

Danster

[bitingmidge]

Glad Wrap.


Unless you can find another way of finishing the floor without "wetting" it.

P

[Danster]

thx bitingmidge,

How do I get the joins in the gladwrap perfect? Can't use my Triton for that!!

Seriously, anyone else...there's gotta be something out there.

What about doing something to the floor after sanding to stop the laquer from 'wetting' the wood?

[bitingmidge]

I think the closest you would come would be a sprayed lacquer, but there are a few things going against you.

Firstly timber colour changes through exposure to UV and to oxygen. Take your pick on those two! Of course then you would have the added complication that the floor finish wasn't actually suited to it's intended purpose!

Coatings are rarely perfectly clear because of the need to include UV inhibitors and other stuff in the material, handy things like drying agents and solvents.

The only way to retain that natural finish is to keep it as a natural finish! One of my clients did that once with a Beech floor, and it was stupendous. She was the best housekeeper I have ever seen, regularly scrubbing the floor to remove dirt build-up etc....I find it hard to believe that she ever cooked in her kitchen, and no one who visited ever spilt red wine or coffee either!

I think your best bet would be to experiment with a combination of bleaches and stains until you get something that looks close after coating.

Your only other chance is to put down a laminated floating floor over the top!

Cheers,

P
(Maybe toughened glass instead of glad wrap??- but the timber will still age under it) :eek:

[Danster]

Thx bitingmidge,
I had thought of a floating floor, but I thought why cover up perfectly good timber? What about limewash before coating? Nothing to strong, maybe diluted so that the floor isnt white but paler.

I guess my best best (aside from bleaches etc as you said - sounds too complicated) is to take a little length of freshly sanded cypress down to my local paint shop and they can open a few tins and experiment. They should have a decent range of Cabots, Watyl, Sikkens, Feast Watson etc to gimme an idea.

[journeyman Mick]

I was reading a fancy interior decorating magazine in a Dr's waiting room recently (what a load of tripe, $170 toilet brushes etc etc) and there was an article about a bloke who wanted a bare floor. I think it was baltic pine, he had it sanded back bare to replicate the rustic cottage look. It was mopped weekly with a highly concentrated solution of sunlight soap in water. He kept cleaning cloths and sandpaper on hand, to be used immediately in case of spillage. My first and foremost thought was GET A LIFE! This bloke must have had not very much to fill his days with if he was prepared to do all this just to get the floor look he was after. And after all, the rustic cottage floors looked the way they did because their owners couldn't afford anything to seal them with. It might be an option for you, Danster if your're willing to spend all your leisure time mollycoddling your floor .

Mick

[Danster]

Thx Mick,
I'll pass that onto the wife. I'll just put my armour on first.

[bitingmidge]

$170 toilet brushes etc etc

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Must have been at one of those cheapie warehouse sales.

P

[Different]

Beeswax will give you the finish you want but wont stand up to walking on it.
A water based poly finish might do it but I think they look like crap.

[fxst]

there ya go BM has the answer partly
lay laminated glass over the flooras he suggested (tougher than gladwrap), block the windows and fill the room with and inert gas and vacuum seal it ...ok u cant use it but then wont have to clean it either
Pete

[E. maculata]

3 months ago made a white Cypress coffee table & applied several very light coats of "white king" poly u, during very low humidity period, carefully sanded between coats and finished with carnuba/ beeswaxas, previous experience had shown it doesn't change the natural colours too much.
Hasn't yet, used another brand on blanket box several yrs ago and it darkened the colours several shades even before the UV's had their turn.

[vsquizz]

See if you can get a couple of similar aged samples and try some of the sanding sealers before applying Nitro C. Thats what I use on aged jarrah to stop it going too dark and bring out the natural colour. I got about 1/2 a 20 litre drum of sealer off a flooring guy and used that for ages and it was great except I can't for the life of me remember what brand it was .

The sanding sealer takes some work (before and after application) to get a good finish but its worth it. I found that whilst the colour changes a little on initial application it came back to near original as it dried.

I would think you can stain (fix) the timber colour if you mess around with dyes and the like until you get something just a tad lighter. This can be applied before or after the sanding sealer but test this to see the affect. You'd need to read Neil's book for the staining as this is not something I have any experience with and there is all sorts of different dyes and stuff you can use.

I wonder if you can apply a polyU over the top of Nitro C???:confused: (here we go)

[vsquizz]

I wonder if you can apply a polyU over the top of Nitro C???:confused:

Duh! that would be about the stupidest thing I ever asked...why would you want to..Duh