New Karri Floor

[paddy17]

Hi, Newbie here. Have recently had a karri floor installed. It is full featured wood. or grade c wood or 3rd grade. Anyway there are holes and knots and gum holes all over it. A Little more than i expected. The floor mob that sold me the wood gave me a 2 part epoxy resin to pour into the gum holes and faults in the wood. This resin finishes shiney, high gloss and the tung oil is a matt finish. The guy that is sanding the floor says that tung oil finish is what is needed on a new floor. To stop edge bonding. Edge bonding can cause the wood to crack and split because it makes the edge of the floor boards stick together. Has anyone had this problem. If i put the tung oil on can i later on put and oil based gloss finish on it or do i have to keep it tung oil??????????????

[Larry McCully]

yes that is corect what the supplier says, and you are able to re coat at any time with a oil mdified gloss finnish. when you fill the holes and sand the surface , the appearence will be as at final coat weather or not the fill is shinny.

[Dusty]

Hi.
Geeze, they make it hard for you, don't they!

Firstly, if it has such a huge amount of holes, splits and cracks you would be much better off simply having the floor sander dude fill the floor with Timber Mate filler, rather than you mucking around with epoxy.

Don't feel that you have to use Tung Oil due to the threat of edge bonding. You can have three coats of Two Pack Gloss if thats the look you really like, or two coats of Gloss and a final coat of Satin. Whatever suits your fancy.

The misconception that polyurethane is the sole cause of edgebonding is totally up the pole. There are many factors that contribute to a floor glueing up and then consequently splitting and cracking.
For instance...

If the timber was not as dry as it should of been on installation.
If the flooring was fixed with a none flexible glue. (Like Liquid Nails and similar)
If the sanding is not flat and even.
And, the biggest cause is tight #### contractors trying to make their products go a little further by thinning down the coatings particularly the first coat.

So, if you like the look of a Gloss floor to be on the safe side have the Sander apply a first coat of a quality fast drying seal. Either Toby Rapid Seal or Polycure Fast Seal is an excellent choice. This seal, along with good sanding will pretty much ensure that you won't have any edgebonding hassles in the future.

Good luck with it all.

By the way, I love Karri, it's awesome stuff to sand. Here's some pics of a 133mm Karri floor finished in Two Pack Gloss and the second photo shows only one coat of Gloss and it still looks grouse.
Dusty.