Oak Flooring - Guide to Surface Treatments
Oak Flooring looks beautiful in its natural oiled state, it has a timeless appeal which complements both traditional and contemporary interiors. If you prefer to ring the changes a little, we offer a range of surface treatments which can enhance the appearance of your wood floor. Here is a quick guide to the oak flooring surface treatments we offer.
Filling and sanding
Just as it sounds, open knots and splits will be filled with strong and hardwearing pigmented filler. Once the filler has fully dried the whole board is sanded smooth. Our Provincial Grade Solid Oak Flooring is supplied filled and sanded as standard. For our Classic and Character Grade Solid Oak Flooring, filling of the knots is optional. All our Engineered Oak Floors have the knots filled and sanded as standard.
Fuming
A chemical process which naturally darkens the timber to a rich, deep colour as an alternative to staining. We place the newly manufactured floorboards into a sealed chamber and apply ammonia as a gas. The ammonia reacts with tannins present in the timber, creating a pleasing, natural variation of warm, dark tones. We can also fume oak skirtings boards, architraves, beading and door thresholds to match a fumed or dark wood floor.
Wirebrushing
Newly machined floorboards are put through our high-speed nylon brushes which removes any sharp edges and raises the grain of the wood to produce a tactile, textured surface. When oiled, wirebrushed floorboards tend to have a higher sheen due light reflecting on the raised grain.
Distressing
Floorboards are put through our custom-made distresser several times, which imparts a completely random series of indentations on the surface and edges of the wood.
We can apply all of these surface treatments to both our engineered and solid European oak floors. Tradition Oak Flooring is a European oak floor which has been brushed, fumed and also distressed to give a very authentic-looking aged wood floor.
For further advice on fitting and finishing your wood flooring call us on 01535 637755 or follow the link to download our freeĀ Hardwood Floor Fitting and Maintenance Guide.