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Last month we wrote about how the difference between solid and engineered wood floors, so we follow that with a few pointers regards the final finish?
There are a variety of pre-finishes that you select from when purchasing your real wood floor soto give you a simple guide we have made a note of the difference between the most popular finishes:
Lacquered Surface
This is the most popular surface finish of real wood floors sold in the UK; the board would be sanded and finished at a factory-mill with an acrylic UV lacquer which is relatively hard smooth surface coating. Due to its application process it can have between 5 and 10 layers of lacquer applied, depending on the range of products, making it a very hard wearing and durable surface. A lacquered surface is normally smooth with either a dull matt sheen or a shiny gloss appearance.
Natural Oiled Surface
The application of natural oil to a floor deepens the natural colour of the wood as it brings out the natural beauty of the grain and soaks right into the wood, once installed to natural oiled floor require a top coat of hard-wax oil to give it a protective layer. The beauty of using natural oils is that if the floor becomes scratched or bruised the damaged area can easily be touched in by applying another coat of hard-wax oil.
UV Oiled Surface
Like a natural oiled floor a UV Oiled floor gives you a deepen natural colour of the wood bringing out the natural beauty of the grain, the difference is that a UV oiled floor does not require a final coat of oil and required little maintenance as oppose to that of natural oiled floor.
Brush Matt Lacquered
During the production process in a factory mill the surface of the board is heavy brushed to remove the soft fibres from the grain leaving a textured surface, a matt lacquered surface gives the same impression as an oiled floor but has the added benefits of the reduced maintenance required from a lacquered floor.
Hard-wax Oiled
Not too dissimilar to natural oiled, hard-wax oiled floors have the same characteristics as natural oil but less absorbent surface, hard-wax oil stays more on the surface as it has greater viscosity of wax. This floor can easily be touched in and when buffed restores itself to its original condition.
