I posted this over in Breaktime but did not get any responses other than the one regular readers might have anticipated from Frenchy. 😉 If anyone here has any experience with either of these products I would love to hear about it.
Our house has 5 inch rift and quarter sawn white oak floors that need refinishing. The flooring specialist that came highly recommended has suggested either Glitsa or Bonakemi finishes. (Glitsa is an upcharge.) What are people’s experiences with these two brands? We have two small kids and a dog so durability and water resistance are important. That said, I would also like to find something that will bring out the best of the figure. Some of the boards actually have some curl to them in addition to the ray flecks and beautiful grain.
Thanks much.
Chris
Replies
As a couple of others mentioned in the thread on Roland Johnsons varnish mix:
Waterlox makes a great varnish to finish floors. They have one they call "Gym Floor" varnish. I have not used that one - I have only used the regular gloss and satin. In my experience, I like to put down 2 coats of Waterlox gloss and follow up with a satin if the customer does not like the high gloss. The gloss seems to be tougher than the satin and it grabs the new floors very well. The only downside to the Waterlox is the odor. Some folks make a big deal about it when you do a "refinish" job. They feel it leaves a smell in the house that they can not get rif of. Out comes the water based stuff. Different path.
Waterlox is a very good varnish for me. I have used it in a bunch of different ways and it has been predictable and easy to adjust.
Just another 2 cents.
dan
Gosh, we must've both posted the same thing at the same moment. As to odor, Waterlox goes away after the first week of curing as long as some venting is done and it's not inside a cabinet or something like that.
I posted in another thread this morning, that I first used it helping my Dad to finish his house in 1960. Between then and now, we redid it once, so it was good for 25 years!
A hugely underrated product.
>> They have one they call "Gym Floor" varnish. I have not used that one - I have only used the regular gloss and satin.Just to clear up a point. Waterlox Original Gloss used to be called "Gym Floor Finish". Guess they figured they could sell more by calling it "Gloss".That said, Waterlox Original Gloss or Satin make fine floor finishes. However, their phenolic resin base makes them a rather amber or yellow finish. Some may like that, some may not.Best to test it on some scrap or in an inconspicuous spot before committing to the whole floor. In fact, it's best to test any finish.Howie.........
Howie
A bunch of the floor work I have done over the years has been repair work as opposed to entirely new installations. Its something we laugh about in the truck but most of the old timers like the orange-yellow look that comes to the red oak installed here in Virginia and NC. Many times I have scabbed in a section and work up to the tint that blends in with the existing flooring. I have been very successful with sealing the floors with different shellac mixtures. Never have needed to get so much color that I needed to tint the shellac. Instead I have used some of the "waxy" lacs after skimming it off and its been about as good with adhesion as the dewaxed stuff. A little Waterlox over the sealer and the color blend has been very nice.
The only time I have had some fits blending floors was when I used lacquer and sawdust as my filler. Even when I sand it back real well, I get some small streaks that I don't like. Most of the time its me being too picky. I've yet to have a customer complain even under the halogen lamps. So...
You sound like you may have done a couple floors?? My trouble these days is finding good clear select oak. Odd as it sounds, I find more quality boards in the 3 1/4 packs than the old 2 1/4" stuff. That seems to be the reverse of the logic I would expect. I don't know.
To be honest about flooring these days, I have been banging in a bunch of prefinished stuff. I know that is heresy to some but skipping the sanding and varnishing is nice and lots of customers ask for it. In many cases, the client has picked out the wood and they call up needing a nailer to come in to level, measure and install. It pays the mortgage and I get to do it at night into the early mornin' hours with nobody else around. Joy.
later
Chris, I'm not familiar with them. At risk of beating a dead horse, have you considered this time proven classic floor covering?
http://www.waterlox.com/desktopmodules/fathomecom/Catalog/ProductDetail.aspx?ct=26
This was for fifty years (and still may be) the finish of choice for gymnasium floors.
Chris,
When I worked for a commercial flooring company installing hardwood flooring in retail stores all over the U.S., we used Bonakemi finishes almost exclusively. These are stores typically in shopping malls that took an amazing amount of abuse.
We also performed refinishing services and whenever refinishing became necessary, all it normally involved was screening and applying a new coat.
No, I have no connection to Bona, just a happt customer.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob
I didn't know you were a nail pounder?? You must have done your share of nailing with the old manual type. I still have mine and use it now and then but I am hooked on the staples and pneumatic tool.
Up in your part of NH, did you install much red birch? When I was in Maine, we used it a bunch and I loved the way it looked.
dan
Morning dan,
Yup, old fashioned manual floor nailer is all I've ever used. I was taught by an old timer up here and he swore by them. He used to tell me, "these young fungers are just plain lazy amd ya caint tell when yur gonna hit a nail and with them fancy rigs when ya do it's too late".
Red Birch: Only laid one floor with it; the bosses floor when I worked for the flooring company. He had the boards milled by the local Ethan Allen furniture factory and they were a pleasure to work with.
Would love to get some red birch for some kitchen cabinets that are making their way to the top of the honey do list. Only source I've found so far charges an arm and a leg for it. Can't understand why.
As to refinishing BonaKemi floors, they were typically done on an as needed basis for lots of different reasons. If the store managers were dilligent in keeping an eye on them it usually involved just a screening and refinish only. Significant changes that involved installation (weaving) of new flooring, the whole floor was usually sanded to bare wood and refinished.
Along towards the end of my stint with the flooring company Bona was introducing their new line of water based finishes and I had little opportunity to work with it so can't comment on it.
If you're looking for inputs on longevity of the finish, that's a tough one to answer. Things like proximity of the retail space to outdoor weather, dilligence of the store personnel of maintaining/careing for the floor, traffic volume etc. all influence this.
When you think about all that's riding on a companies decision to choose a finish for retail spaces, there's a lot going on there.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Bob
Forgot to ask you- how often did you have to refinish these high traffic floors with the product you referred to?
dan
I have had Glitsa in both my current house and the one before it. For what it's worth, the current house is rift and quartered white oak and I am very pleased with the way the glitsa popped the grain. The glitsa is tough as nails. I've also had big dogs in both houses and no scratches in the Glitsa. This is a little gross, but in the current house, the dog had an accident in a corner of the living room that went unnoticed for a couple of days. I was certain the finish was ruined, but after cleaning up the mess, the floor was undamaged.
One thing of note with the Glitsa - You Can't stay in the house while the work is being done. It simply stinks too bad. I like to think I'm pretty immune to chemical smells, but I can't hang with Glitsa.
I don't have any experience with Glitsa, but Bonakemi is extremely tough stuff.
-Steve
Steve
Sounds like you have experience with waterlox and the bonakemi. How do they compare? Have you used them in flooring appications maybe?
dan
I don't have personal experience using a Bona product to finish a floor. What I have done is kept my eye on a heavily-used hardwood floor (basketball court/gym) that was finished a few years ago with a Bona finish, and seeing how it wears over time. (One of these days, I expect to build a house, and a few years ago I did a bunch of research on floor finishes, both in terms of their durability and their environmental impact. The Bona finishes were one product line that I sort of mentally flagged to keep a lookout for.)
I think the main advantage of Bona (and presumably Glitsa, too) finishes is that they are very tough polyurethanes. I don't have any head-to-head data at hand, but conventional (non-polyurethane) varnishes like Waterlox usually don't fare well in comparison to polyurethane when it comes to toughness and long-term abrasion resistance. I've used Waterlox on a small floor area, but it gets very little traffic, so I can't really say how well it performs under "real world" conditions.
Polyurethane finishes are supposedly more work to refinish then conventional varnishes, but that's not something I've ever had to do.
-Steve
Thanks everyone for the input.
Dan and Blewcrowe,
I too like the Waterlox floor finishes. In fact, I used it on the stair landing when I finished out the basement two years ago. I installed about 30 sq ft of oak flooring leftover from the upstairs, stained it with leftover stain and finished it with two coats of the gloss and one coat of satin. As far as I can tell the color appears to be a good match to the upstairs and it has been pretty durable. I may go back to the flooring guy who will be doing the work upstairs and ask him about using Waterlox but since Glitsa and Bonakemi are the finishes he is used to working with I thought I would do a little research. Always open to learning something new...
Chris
Well, if he's familiar with one and promises success, you'd better go with it. Good luck. Later.
Denny
He is familiar with those brands and he comes highly recommended from a friend I trust. But I am sure you know what subcontractors' promises are worth. I am trying to do a little research and thus hopefully have a better idea going in as to what to expect. I will quiz him on the Waterlox products.
Thanks again.
Chris
I just ordered some Bona Traffic for my new floor, but I cannot say I looked into Glitsa. The experts I talked to spoke very highly of their products and at $145/gal it better work. Bona also has some of the best dust collection equipment around for re-doing floors so if your flooring contractor has this it will save you lots of cleanup after. Check out the video on their site.
Brad
brad,
Great video eh!
The flooring company I used to work for is retrofitting to these vacs for their crews. The labor savings alone will pay for them in a very short time not to mention the customer satisfaction.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Wonderful stuff they have. I wish I lived in a large enough center to have access to one. When I was chatting with the dealer he mentioned by the time he had the trailer and their machines the cost would be around $100k and it could not justify it.
Brad
Brad,
Sorry, I should have mentioned that the flooring company installs/repairs/refinish of hardwood floors in retail spaces around the country. Much different scale of operations than those dealing with residential flooring.
We had 14 crews scattered all over the place. Retails stores cannot close at any time so this work was done after hours all the time. You can just imagine the coordination involved and cleanup was a major issue. You know, time is money.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
These guys do the full gamat of floors. I was surprised to hear they didnt go to something like the bona tools. Health of their workers alone is worth it.
While I have you, how tough is it to use the Traffic product? The working time is awfully short? The first rep was leary about me installing it.
Sorry to the OP.
Brad,
Are you talking about a commercial or residential install?
I never actually applied the finish myself as I worked on the flooring installation and prep part of the operation. Followed NOFMA standards to the letter whenever possible. We disc screened to 120 to burnish the floor before finish application. Staining uses a different process.
As I understand it from the finish foreman; you follow Bonas installation instructions to the letter. This was imperative as we guranteed all our installations. Kinda like shellacing. If we had missses we let them go and touched up after, then the next coat.
I have attached the instructions for you but you probably already have them.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I do have the instructions. It is a residential install, no stain.
Thks for the tips.
Before we moved into our house in 2003 we had the wood floor refinished. The refinisher stained and then used Glitsa. 5 years has passed, and I am needing to have it refinished again. We got a yellow lab two years ago and he has been hard on the finish, but I am a little surprised that it didn't hold up better.I have thought about buffing and adding another top coat myself. Does anyone know if it would be possible to use Waterlox over the Glitsa?CK
Pretty hard to get any finish to hold up that well to dog nails. When questioning the salesman I asked about finish durability and he pretty much admitted that the higher quality products are great for normal wear, but scratching will ruin pretty much any of them. I would think the water based products all should mesh together but maybe one of the Steve's or Bob will chime in with some better words of advice. The bona literature that Bob posted discusses re-coating a floor too. You should confirm any of this with a qualified rep too. The darn stuff is pricey and is a lot of work to take any chances.
Brad
You may shudder at this suggestion but have you looked into using shellac?
I say this in that of any finish, shellac is probably the easiest to repair. Might be a bit more maintenance than others but repair would be nearly a snap I would think.
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
I dont have any dogs in my house, so I am not worried about scratching as much as the other fellow was. I have read Frenchy's discussions about how well the shellac has performed with his large doggy. I tried the shellac on my workbench and it didnt hold up that well for me and I ended up re-finishing with poly. Could have been me. Shellac is great for washcoating and items that dont see much abuse. I have spent far too much time making the flooring to take any chances. I am a believer in following what the professionals do. Thanks for asking.
Brad
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