Hi all
Have just stripped the floorboards in my Victorian Terrace. Unfortunately in most places the pine has losts its old look (Patina?) and is now very light coloured.
However I have read that pine will darken over time so I'm not too keen on staining the wood. Will "old" pine darken quite quickly? I may be imagining things but it already seems darker after 1 day.
Am I best off letting nature take its course?
Thanks
They will darken to some extent .Have you varnished them ..varnish being a term used loosely .
Yes, but they will not darken quickly, they will darken at the same rate whatever their age. I suggest waiting ten years at least for the fainest hope of regaining the patina. The problem with over sanding is you loose the distressed look too. You should find that the colour is still better than new timber, however much you take off. For c.100 year old stuff. These days most soft wood is not pine (spruce I think, so called white wood) that will never have that golden tinge. I've yet to try it, but I've heard ammonia darkens wood to give a 'natural' speeded up darkening.
-- Mike W
yes, you stripped it off.
Pine darkens steadily. Definitely let nature take its course, stained pine doesnt look as nice and wear and tear will show up worse if stained. It doesnt take too long before it starts to look ok by itself.
NT
The floorboards have not been varnished yet. I will be varnishing them with polyurethane varnish.
That sounds like good advice. Thanks.
New pine darkens, but I think that's to do with the resin. Old pine is less likely to do so. A 1% solution of vandyke crystals does a good job of harmonising the appearance without giving it too positive a colour. Be careful with the finish. Polyurethane makes everything look yellow in time. An acid catalysed 2 part varnish is genuinely clear. Acrylics too, but I don't like the look of them
Which will seal them and slow (but nor stop) the patina developing process.
Top tip: Polyurethane is expensive. Screwfix £14/2.5Lt. So seal the boards with a coat of water based stuff first, then your top coat will go further. I reckon on 2.5Lt = 3 coats for a 11"x11ft room. Not that I use 3 coats, more like 3 rooms! Easy enough to bung another coat on in a few years.
Another Tip: use a halogen desk lamp to regularly hover over the new surface as you brush (or roll) away. You can easily see the bits you miss (and you will) from the shine off the wet surface.
-- Mike W
That's what we did and we're very happy with the results. We love the golden colour. Ours had been stained very dark back in the 1940s or earlier. It took some doing to strip it all.
Mary
Ours didn't and we did it ten years ago. Much more time and we shan't care :-)
Mary
I sanded my dining room floorboards with an industrial sander and lost all the character - they are now so smooth people think they're laminate. I compounded the mistake by painting them with coloured varnish. This chips off from time to time leaving white patches of unvarnished wood showing through. I will have to eventually strip the lot and do what I did in my hallway which was to use a random orbital hand sander on 40 then 60 then finer grades of grit. This left most of the character intact whilst stripping most of the dirt and damage.
I then stained the boards with antique pine woodstain by Rustins. Finally I finished with acrylic varnish. I am much more pleased with the effect than that in my dining room.
I would be concerned in your position that a patina will not develop on your boards in any sensible timespan, and as long as you hold off from varnishing, more and more dirt is being ground into the boards.
Andy.
Sounds like a lot of work for nothing. There is really no need to sand boards in houses in most cases, sanding is more appropriate for public buildings and so on where heavy wear has made them too uneven. The very slight undulation in house boards is very small and entirely harmless , and there is no need to remove it and make it look like laminate.
A thorough washing removes all the muck (except the infamous black stuff the Victorians used at times) leaving the wood white, then a hand sander (a stock removal type) will remove smaller areas of 'black stuff.' In most cases this is all thats needed, plus turning the odd damaged board over.
If youre unlucky enough to have a whole floor all treated with the famous black stuff, a big sander may be called for, but this is not normally the case. Normally the dark finish is dirt based.
Sanding also is liable to expose woodworm tunnels, which dont make floors look good at all.
How to wash it all off: a bucket of water with washing powder and with or without a few drops of bleach works, as do other mixtures. Wet, mop, wait 2 minutes, mop, repeat for a couple of hours and your floor should be as clean as can be. A lot less work than sanding.
Sure there are other ways etc, someone will now propose them all.
NT
We just scrubbed a very old,mucky, uneven pine floor with an ordinary domestic Hoover floor polisher. It dribbles out the cleaning solution as it scrubs. Used sugar soap. Took some time to dry with assistance from fan heaters over several days. Not perfect but very effective and now looks nice with Osmo oil.
cheers Jacob
Interesting. Wonder if a carpet cleaner would also do it. Anyone tried?
NT
No, but carpet cleaner would be the way to go because it foams and leaves dirt on the surface, whereas sugar soap drives it into the wood. Used to be trisodium phosphate but I imagine that has been outlawed
Don't know what you mean about sugar soap it is very effective. Works just like a strong soap but without the foam. You then mop it off and rinse as you would with soap. Is stronger than detergent but less strong and much easier and more convenient than caustic soda. The Hoover F4002 is floor polisher and carpet cleaner. Didn't think it'd be up to it but was very good.
cheers Jacob
I haven't investigated the accuracy of this piece of advise that came through my daughter from a guy laying a hardwood floor in her house. When asked about the deterioration in the poly varnish painted onto some stripped pine, his response was that oil based poly should NOT be used on pine as it sets too hard and the movement of the wood with natural moisture makes it craze. Not a problem with hard wood though. His recommendation was to use water based poly for pine floors.
Might be worth seeing if this is accurate advice or not.
Rob
Is water based varnish polyurethane? I don't think so.
Well from my experience that is bollocks.
Oils are better the varnishes which can be too hard and glossy- the more likely to scratch/craze etc. Oils you can touch up easily; Danish Oil, Osmo oil (which my wife bought without consultation but seems OK so far) - or plain raw linseed oil thinned with turps - takes some time to dry but very durable.
cheers Norman
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