I am completing the install of southern yellow pine 5 inch T&G flooring in my new workshop. My original intention was to sand away the production, middleman and install marks, level any miss-alignments and leave the wood unfinished. I am beginning to think I should provide some protection against spills and other minor marks with a simple finish such as oil or poly, but I don’t want to create and annual project.
I am seeking suggestions and recommendations for such a finish, what it might be and how to best apply it to a 500 sq foot floor…or are there good reasons for leaving the floor unfinished?
The floor is installed over 15# roofing felt stapled to an OSB sub floor, attached to steel joists supported by steel piers within a 3 foot vented and sumped crawl space.
Thank you,
Richard
Replies
floor-level trade-offs
It seems to me that a shop floor finish is a trade-off between safety, stability, and ease of cleaning. From a safety perspective, the best finish might be an epoxy mixed with sand - the stuff typically applied to concrete. But, that's tough to clean with anything other than a vacuum. For cleaning, smoother is better, but that sacrifices safety. For stability, I'd think it's best to minimize differences in moisture absorption, so the floor doesn't cup across the width of the flooring planks. So, I'm thinking that spraying a good-quality, oil-based flooring varnish on a wood floor that hasn't been sanded beyond 80-100 grit might be the best compromise. But, I'm not a flooring expert.
Floor coatings that are made specifically for flooring must meet specifications for traction, though perhaps not enough for a shop floor. Limiting the application to a couple of coats of a good floor finish in a matte sheen ought to give sufficient traction, but allow you to keep down dust and wipe off spills. The waterborne floor finishes work quite well, and since they don't color the wood much could give the illusion of an unfinished floor.
Or, you can just put on a coat of a oil/varnish mix to help it shed dust and spills and to give it a finished wood color. Sure it will get dinged and stains won't be impeccably removed, but it is a workshop.
Woodshop floor finish
I recently had unfinished 3.4" x 31/4" oak flooring installed in my basement woodworking shop, which will be sanded, sealed, and finished with "Traffic" water based satin polyurethane high traffic finish. I asked the flooring contractor who refinished the maple hardwood floors in my home, his recommendation and he suggested the same finish that was applied several months ago and it looks good. JQL//
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