Finishing a new hardwood floor, BEFORE it's layed

[dirk martin]

My brother has a friend (with plenty of money) asking him to provide them with prefinished red oak flooring. They are not local to him.

Can someone tell me of a good, hard, finish, and perhaps a good technique? Spray on? Brush on? Is it simply a matter of laying the strips out on sawhorses, and going at it? How many coats?

About 6,000 sq. feet.

Thanks gang....

[Mort Stevens]

It will look better if it's installed, sanding then finished. Whoever is doing in the install, should be able to sand and finish it. As far as finish is concerned, high gloss polyurethane for the first 2 coats, then the last/topcoat whatever gloss level you want - the reason for this is the high gloss is a much harder finish and wears better then semi or no gloss.

[Rick Lizek]

We do high end floors that are prefinished. We use a catalyzed finish called Bona. Much better than polyurethane.
http://www.bona.com/en-US/United-States1/BonaSystem/Coatings/.
See Glitsa Max as an alternative catalyzed finish. Prefinished flooring has eased edges so subtle variations are not an issue. Prefinished flooring is a common option in the industry. We just made prefinished floor of 10,000 sq feet 6" fumed white oak for a beach front property on Long Island NY. The other 10,000 feet of the house was tiled.

[John McClanahan]

Lay some of the new floor out and make sure it is smooth across the seams before finishing. It would be a shame to discover the seams are rough after the floor is down.

John

[Mark Bolton]

I can't see any way possible to in good conscience bill a customer for 6000 feet of pre finished flooring made by someone spraying it on sawhorses? Regardless of how much money someone has without a serious molding machine there is simply no way in my opinion you could even get your material consistent enough across that much footage to prefinish and have the floor work out or even look good. We too use Bona but good pre finished floors use multiple coat high aluminum finishes (brutal on blades) for durability. I just installed a bunch of 3 1/4 red oak, 8 coats of finish from the factory, and I bought it wholesale for about $3 a square foot. There is no way to even come close to that without hundred thousand or more in tooling and finish line. To think about taking someone's money trying to is in my opinion, well, not nice.

i personally don't like prefinished floors. The gaps that are inevitable even with a high quality product are unsightly but unfortunately its all people will pay for nowadays. A pre finished floor installed at 8 bucks a square makes many quickly down grade their quality standards as compared to 15 for a floor that is dead smooth, gap free, and site finished. The increased durability of a factory applied finish is the only bonus and you won't provide that with sawhorses and a sprayer.

[Steve Meliza]

Finishes for your woodworking are designed to be very smooth and slick, finishes for your floor have a little grip to them so you don't wind up on the floor looking up at your ceiling wondering how you got there. At least that's what one company said when I asked about their poly finishes. We've got Glitsa Gold on our red oak floor and it looks fantastic, but Glitsa MultiKote is also popular around here. Both are a conversion varnish that you can't go buy in the store and needs someone skilled to do the application with proper PPE on.

Pre-finished flooring has bevels to hide the over wood and under wood that you sometimes get between joints. Wood from a high quality mill (we're not talking Lumber Liquidator's here) will have less over/under wood, but will still have some that needs knocked down after the wood is nailed into place. In some cases the application is quite literally pouring the finish in a puddle on the floor then spreading out out, but in others it is with an 18" wide paint roller with a nap specifically selected to work well with that finish. Prior to that the whole house is cleaned of dust and sealed up tight to stop air flow that will dry the finish before it has time to flow out smoothly. After 24 hours run through the house in your socks and throw open the windows and let it air out. Obviously this isn't something you can do to some boards on saw horses so you're making concession after concession in an attempt to do something the wrong way.

If your brother's friend truly has money then he will pony up the ~$60k needed to hire a pro to do a site finished floor. If he's looking to waste his money and have everyone that visits his home know it then other options abound. We're not talking about hiring someone from Craigslist or the guy that installed the carpet last week: http://woodfloors.org/certified-professional-search.aspx

[dirk martin]

I can't see any way possible to in good conscience bill a customer for 6000 feet of pre finished flooring made by someone spraying it on sawhorses? Regardless of how much money someone has without a serious molding machine there is simply no way in my opinion you could even get your material consistent enough across that much footage to prefinish and have the floor work out or even look good. We too use Bona but good pre finished floors use multiple coat high aluminum finishes (brutal on blades) for durability. I just installed a bunch of 3 1/4 red oak, 8 coats of finish from the factory, and I bought it wholesale for about $3 a square foot. There is no way to even come close to that without hundred thousand or more in tooling and finish line. To think about taking someone's money trying to is in my opinion, well, not nice.

i personally don't like prefinished floors. The gaps that are inevitable even with a high quality product are unsightly but unfortunately its all people will pay for nowadays. A pre finished floor installed at 8 bucks a square makes many quickly down grade their quality standards as compared to 15 for a floor that is dead smooth, gap free, and site finished. The increased durability of a factory applied finish is the only bonus and you won't provide that with sawhorses and a sprayer.

How the boards are milled, and how the finish is applied, seem like two seperate issues...so I'm confused, Mark.
My question is in regards to finish application, not the milling of the boards.
Plus, I was just in an Amish house last week, with stunning Elm floors (self made, finished, and installed). And, I sure didn't see thousands of dollars of machines anywhere....

[Mike Cutler]

Dirk

I think Mark is looking at the end result. You can put a nice finish on a bunch of boards, but if they are differing thicknesses, the "total finished product" will be sub standard.
I agree, it doesn't take 10's of thousands of dollars, and super high tech machines, and finishes, to create a stunning floor. But, if you want to have a super durable finish, and have it done quickly, it will.
I have two floors I installed over the past few years. One I finished myself, the other came prefinished.
My kitchen floor is Qsawn bubinga that I sanded and finished myself. It's gorgeous, but not as durable as some pre applied finishes. I did however make it easily repairable so I can touch it up. It took me two days to lay it, and over a week to finish <200sq/ft with the repetetive coats necessary and the in between coat steps. I couldn't imagine doing it to 6000 sq/ft. Maybe your brother can.

If his friend has the $$$$, he may want to just consider custom ordering the flooring prefinished from Q-Sawwn flooring, or Adavantage lumber. The flooring is not random lengths, ala Bellawood at Lumber liquidators. The lengths are pre-spec'd. The grain and hue are also consitent. No wild facesawn grain patterns and differences in tone and hue.

After doing my own floor I developed a healthy respect for the folks that do it for a living. It's a boat load of work to do properly.

[Mark Bolton]

How the boards are milled, and how the finish is applied, seem like two seperate issues...so I'm confused, Mark.
My question is in regards to finish application, not the milling of the boards.
Plus, I was just in an Amish house last week, with stunning Elm floors (self made, finished, and installed). And, I sure didn't see thousands of dollars of machines anywhere....

Given you were asking the question, denoting a species so common its sold by the rail car cheaper than dirt, and no details which make pre-finishing the only option, it seemed a valid assumption you were talking of pre-finishing flooring to be conventionally laid (tongue and groove) whether its purchased or milled in-house/on-site. In this case how the boards are milled relates directly to pre-finishing. Accommodations are made for fitment, irregularity, accommodating the finish itself, and so on.

One, or at least I, wouldnt assume you to be asking about how to finish, or considerations for finishing techniques, on square edge boards to be face nailed rustic or something of that sort because you really cant pre-finish a floor like that anyway so its just natural to think we're talking about a blind fastened floor similar to conventional hardwood.

As has been mentioned, unless there is some serious site considerations which have to be dealt with, there is little to no advantage to pre-finishing flooring on-site, I would say none. My thoughts would be the outcome will be less than desirable and at four to five times the cost. What your brothers clients motivation for that is I have no idea. If its just to throw money at someone then by all means tell him to keep his head down and cash the checks.

I too have seen, and had the pleasure of installing, some pretty neet floors done in a very creative manner. That said, they usually involved something unique. As you say, odd species, the way they are laid, super wide boards, randoms, details, and so on. With all that usually comes a lot of fitting and fussing which tends to lead naturally to a flooded finish once the floor is complete. It is by far the most cost effective way to site apply finish to a vast quantity of flooring not to mention quality of finish.

With regards to the Amish, I have no idea. If your talking an Amish built home for hire not to take anything away from them but, in my area at least, they they seem to be able to do some things solely because they operate under a completely different set of rules than the rest of us in business. Their quality, code compliance, and many other things, leave a lot to be desired. But I will say their "handlers" make a lot of money off them. They are masters of marketing for sure.

[Peter Aeschliman]

I think one thing to consider is how the wood is milled. My wife and I installed pre-finished floors (finished in the factory) in our condo. I think it works because they are the "hand scraped" style. So the edges are softly rounded over. This hides the fact that none of the pieces fit together seamlessly.

If the customer wants flat floors with no visible seams between pieces, I can't imagine you'll be able to pull it off without sanding and finishing after laying the floor.

Additionally, as others have said, the finishes that factories apply are highly advanced... UV cured, aluminum oxide, etc... not something for the small shop.

So I don't want to rain on your parade. But if the customer wants a highly durable pre-finished floor, he/she should buy factory-finished floors. If the customer wants smooth floors, they should be sanded and finished after installation. I imagine it wouldn't be worth your time to do all of this work in (what I assume is) a non-production shop, assuming you plan to charge the customer a competitive price, with an end result that will be inferior to site-finished or factory pre-finished floors.

Good luck!

[Alan Bienlein]

I'm about to do the same thing. I already have the wood for the flooring and am going to give it a hand scraped look. Once that's done I'm going to prefinish it and then install it. The big advantage is none of that mess will be in my house and I don't have to worry about ways to get around areas of the floor that are wet with finish.

Sounds like a win win to me.

[Mark Bolton]

I'm about to do the same thing. I already have the wood for the flooring and am going to give it a hand scraped look. Once that's done I'm going to prefinish it and then install it. The big advantage is none of that mess will be in my house and I don't have to worry about ways to get around areas of the floor that are wet with finish.

Sounds like a win win to me.

We all come at this from different perspectives, but my rationale from doing this for a living (dont mean anything by it because its a brutal career) is this...

When you buy a pre-finished product you trade the fact that it will have flaws, gaps, dings, and so on, by the time your done for one thing and thats reduced cost. That is the sole purpose of pre-finished flooring. The mess and the increased durability are merely benefits but the main factor is its cheaper. Because its cheaper you are willing do deal with the fact that there will be visible gaps from the day its installed, it will never be flat, ever, this is in trade for less out of pocket expense.

To me whats happening now is people are so accustomed to pre-finished flooring they are trying to meld all of the benefits which instantly obscures the main objective, reduced cost.

My logic with your above project is if I am going to go to the extremely costly, yet extremely rewarding, extent of making my own flooring, and hand scraping it for that matter, then installing it, regardless of any notion of free wood (it was likely purchased sometime/somehow), that floor is going to cost so much I am damn sure going to make its as flawless as my time will allow. To me making a mess is nothing. If in the shop you take the floor to the point immediately prior to finishing you will still have 90% of your mess outside. On installation you will be able to tweak, plane, sand-in, tough spots, getting the floor as close to flawless as your time will allow. Then in 1.2 days you flood on three coats of Bona Traffic HD which dries to scuff in 4 hours and poof... you have a flawless, tight, flooded finish floor. The finish has flowed down into all the joints and the floor is the berries. I will bet the time spent cleaning up will pale in comparison to the time spent handling hundreds of boards individually while finishing them.

Like I say, I know from a business perspective I view it differently especially with regards to putting a dollar value on my time. And my life is going into homes, moving stuff out, making a mess, and cleaning it up daily with a spic an span at the end so I guess the mess doesn't bother me especially in a case like this where your not talking about bringing in a drum sander and buffer and making all that mess. I wouldnt trade a flooded finish for pre-finshed for anything if I had gone to the work of making the floor myself. If I worked for a flooring company and they let me come in on the weekend and run some juicy material through their 100K finish line I'd probably reconsider :)

As an aside, how to you keep the finish on the mating faces smooth/crisp? How do you stop the finish from running down into the profile and causing you trouble on installation/noise/etc? Same for the end matching? How many coats of finish will you put on and how? How will some boards not have slightly thicker or heavy edges?

I understand the hand scraping allows for a lot of fudge but just all things that come to mind.

[Alan Bienlein]

We all come at this from different perspectives, but my rationale from doing this for a living (dont mean anything by it because its a brutal career) is this...

When you buy a pre-finished product you trade the fact that it will have flaws, gaps, dings, and so on, by the time your done for one thing and thats reduced cost. That is the sole purpose of pre-finished flooring. The mess and the increased durability are merely benefits but the main factor is its cheaper. Because its cheaper you are willing do deal with the fact that there will be visible gaps from the day its installed, it will never be flat, ever, this is in trade for less out of pocket expense.

To me whats happening now is people are so accustomed to pre-finished flooring they are trying to meld all of the benefits which instantly obscures the main objective, reduced cost.

My logic with your above project is if I am going to go to the extremely costly, yet extremely rewarding, extent of making my own flooring, and hand scraping it for that matter, then installing it, regardless of any notion of free wood (it was likely purchased sometime/somehow), that floor is going to cost so much I am damn sure going to make its as flawless as my time will allow. To me making a mess is nothing. If in the shop you take the floor to the point immediately prior to finishing you will still have 90% of your mess outside. On installation you will be able to tweak, plane, sand-in, tough spots, getting the floor as close to flawless as your time will allow. Then in 1.2 days you flood on three coats of Bona Traffic HD which dries to scuff in 4 hours and poof... you have a flawless, tight, flooded finish floor. The finish has flowed down into all the joints and the floor is the berries. I will bet the time spent cleaning up will pale in comparison to the time spent handling hundreds of boards individually while finishing them.

Like I say, I know from a business perspective I view it differently especially with regards to putting a dollar value on my time. And my life is going into homes, moving stuff out, making a mess, and cleaning it up daily with a spic an span at the end so I guess the mess doesn't bother me especially in a case like this where your not talking about bringing in a drum sander and buffer and making all that mess. I wouldnt trade a flooded finish for pre-finshed for anything if I had gone to the work of making the floor myself. If I worked for a flooring company and they let me come in on the weekend and run some juicy material through their 100K finish line I'd probably reconsider :)

As an aside, how to you keep the finish on the mating faces smooth/crisp? How do you stop the finish from running down into the profile and causing you trouble on installation/noise/etc? Same for the end matching? How many coats of finish will you put on and how? How will some boards not have slightly thicker or heavy edges?

I understand the hand scraping allows for a lot of fudge but just all things that come to mind.

See thats the difference between us. Its a floor that's going to see a lot of use. That's why I'm going for the hand scraped look. I'm not about to put any one out in my house to do this project because of wet floors. This is something I'm going to do at my leisure and I already have a rack set up for it. I have also checked the fir of the boards by grabbing any two at random and the are flush on the surface when you put them together.

Last hard wood floor I had to mess with was back in 2009 and it was 5000 sqft of hand scraped mesquite. That one was prestained and a coat of finish before it was installed.
264834

[Mark Bolton]

See thats the difference between us. Its a floor that's going to see a lot of use. That's why I'm going for the hand scraped look. I'm not about to put any one out in my house to do this project because of wet floors. This is something I'm going to do at my leisure and I already have a rack set up for it. I have also checked the fir of the boards by grabbing any two at random and the are flush on the surface when you put them together.

Last hard wood floor I had to mess with was back in 2009 and it was 5000 sqft of hand scraped mesquite. That one was prestained and a coat of finish before it was installed.



Right, and thats kinda my point. All floors see a lot of use, its just a fact perhaps other than a formal dining room or some other unused room in the house. Please dont think Im arguing with you because Im not, its just a conversation, but the hand scraped thing has always kind of mystified me and most of the installers I deal with.

The hand scraped look introduces high and low points in the floor to make it "ruddy" looking. But the simple fact is, and I dont know how you intend to finish your floors, highs and lows are the death-nell of any floor right down to carpet perhaps other than "some" tile. A high point wears 10x as fast as it concentrates the wear on a film finish. I see this all the time with these new rolling floors that are so in fashion. It just doesnt work with a film finish. The finish will break over time on the most minute of high's. Even with a commercial multi-coat finish, it will break while the remainder of the floor looks nearly new because its basically never been walked on. Its a scenario where a bullet proof commercial finish is critical unless you plan on refinishing every couple years.

Im not speaking against the look because I personally like it but it is what it is.

Your stack of lumber speaks clearly to what I was trying to get across. That pile would be a blink of an eye for a flooring manufacturer. But it will represent a monumental amount of work in comparison for you as an individual in a home shop. I am in no way saying your a fool for doing it, I think its great. Truly I do. But at some point some dollars and sense has to factor in especially as it relates to this thread. I dont think anyone, and surely not the OP's brother, really looks at this as a labor of love. Its wrapped in a blanket of cost savings. Thats all Im saying.

Im not trying to be offensive but beyond a labor of love, which is perfectly fine for me because I do it all the time, there is no logic in it. The finish will be substandard, the fitment will likely be sub standard, and the wear will be sub standard. The part that shines, and shines brightly, is living your life on a floor you made. I do it, but I know that floor cost me dearly.

As for putting anyone out of your house, (and this is light hearted as ever) you could install the floor which will inconvenience the house as any floor will, have coffee and breakfast in the morning, wife and kids go shopping, to the pool, whatever, lay on coat one, go play nine holes or whatever your fancy. Lunch they all come back, run around like normal, leave for afternoon shopping, you lay on coat two... four hours later family home watch movies make popcorn, drop a sausage on the floor,.. next morning, repeat.. <insert hobbies at will> :D

Not saying you should but we do it all the time.. :)

[Jason Roehl]

Dang, Mark. I wish I could get $15/ft. for an installed and finished floor around here. $5/ft., not including the flooring is pulling teeth.

As for two boards "appearing" to be the same thickness, what you test fit in your shop, and what's nailed down on the floor are two very different things. You'll feel a height difference between two boards of even a few hundredths of an inch, especially if the flooring is not v-grooved in some way. I saw a beautiful Brazilian Cherry floor go in a million dollar home, but it was pre-finished and had square edges. What a disaster--you could feel just about every edge with shoes on, never mind what the owners felt once they moved in and started walking on it in stocking or bare feet.

Mark is right--prefinished is cheap and has a very durable finish, but those are the only advantages. Sanding and finishing is only as messy as you make it. I just did 3 bedrooms and a hallway for a long-time customer. She asked me last year about how we should go about it. I told her to call her sons over, move the furniture out of those rooms, then go on vacation for a week. Other rooms in a house tend to be less inconvenient to refinish.

[Steve Meliza]

Dang, Mark. I wish I could get $15/ft. for an installed and finished floor around here. $5/ft., not including the flooring is pulling teeth.

Rates are somewhat regional and depend on the type of customer the business serves. I doubt this is limited to flooring, but the worst customer is the one whose first question is "how much" and are interested in the lowest price no matter what compromises must be made. Around here $10/sqft would be average for a professional to install, sand, and finish a floor (that's including a common wood such as #1 red oak). Pre-finished would probably run about $5/sqft and removal of old flooring $1-2/sqft.

One of the hidden costs of factory pre-finished is what you do with it in 10-20 years when the finish has died. Now you have to find someone willing to sand a floor covered in a finish made of the same stuff as his sand paper. You've also got to decide if you're willing to pay him enough to sand off all of the bevels or if you're ok if some boards still show a bevel and some don't.

To go back to the OP's question for a moment. I can't see this ending up well for the friendship if the brother does the work. Think of all of the potential for misunderstanding and loss of money due to amateur mistakes. It is well meaning to call in a friend to do a job and give them some business, but sometimes maintaining a friendship requires knowing when to say "no thanks". We don't even know other details such as where they are located. If the brother lives in Arizona and the friend in the midwest then the wood will show up at the job site way too dry to be installed in that climate. The brother could drive up with a trailer full of finished flooring and the wife of the friend says "Who's house is THAT terrible looking color going into?".

[Mark Bolton]

Dang, Mark. I wish I could get $15/ft. for an installed and finished floor around here. $5/ft., not including the flooring is pulling teeth.

As for two boards "appearing" to be the same thickness, what you test fit in your shop, and what's nailed down on the floor are two very different things. You'll feel a height difference between two boards of even a few hundredths of an inch, especially if the flooring is not v-grooved in some way. I saw a beautiful Brazilian Cherry floor go in a million dollar home, but it was pre-finished and had square edges. What a disaster--you could feel just about every edge with shoes on, never mind what the owners felt once they moved in and started walking on it in stocking or bare feet.

Mark is right--prefinished is cheap and has a very durable finish, but those are the only advantages. Sanding and finishing is only as messy as you make it. I just did 3 bedrooms and a hallway for a long-time customer. She asked me last year about how we should go about it. I told her to call her sons over, move the furniture out of those rooms, then go on vacation for a week. Other rooms in a house tend to be less inconvenient to refinish.

15 was the number I threw out for a site finished floor (traditional hardwood) probably low and i would never do one for that. I think I said 8 for pre finished. And that's materials and labor so your numbers are right where we are here. 4-5 for install (including fasteners and paper) is about average for pre-finished. It's tough to make any money. We just put in about 600', part of a new home, and I'm glad it's not something I do every day.