Should we use hard varnish (Bona Traffic HD) or easily maintained oil (Osmo polyx) on pine floor?

[Gothichome]

The floors are fir. These pics are after re shellacking. The bark spots are history, some burn mark, others black ink nd yet others are just the knots. Thought it looked nice leaving all the patina. My suspicion is all our floors always had rugs.
Ron

 

[LadyArowana]

Lots of beautiful floors. Ours are mostly covered in rugs and we are "no shoes in the house" people ( after being in Asia outdoor shoes inside becomes a bit ) so this is a tangential question..... Is it possible to spot refinish something which has been French polished?

The background to my question is that we have a mahogany? "Butler's table" on the landing, and our lovely tenants left a mark on it. It's like a bare patch of "not shiny" which is crescent shaped, possibly from the bottom of a vase or mug, but it's not a white mark. It's a small defect, and whilst I could have the whole table removed and sent for restoration I use the table and don't want it away and it's not so big that it's horribly noticeable, in fact often covered with my seasonal items.

Any wisdom gratefully received. Picture is my Autumn things on it, and doesn't show the damage, not helpful I realize

 

[Cubist]

Its a fairly easy repair for someone with the relevant knowledge and skills. If you have a good antiques restorer nearby its the kind of job he/she could do very quickly. That said a novice could ruin the piece all too quickly.

 

[Toby Newell]

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The floors are fir. These pics are after re shellacking. The bark spots are history, some burn mark, others black ink nd yet others are just the knots. Thought it looked nice leaving all the patina. My suspicion is all our floors always had rugs.
Ron

Not original shellac, it's been sanded very badly with a cheap drum sander, I can see the marks of what looks like an HT7 or similar. You would of been going over PU varnish probably, if it was waterbased it would of gone sticky. Floor would of been darker. If it originally had rugs and was original it would have a 2 to 3 foot dark brown-black ashphaltum border.

Also it may be Fir, can't see from here, but not of the Douglas variety. Looks like yellow pine.

And apologies if I seem uncharitable.

I aim to inform and report facts that is all.

Nice wallpaper.

 

[Toby Newell]

Lots of beautiful floors. Ours are mostly covered in rugs and we are "no shoes in the house" people ( after being in Asia outdoor shoes inside becomes a bit ) so this is a tangential question..... Is it possible to spot refinish something which has been French polished?

The background to my question is that we have a mahogany? "Butler's table" on the landing, and our lovely tenants left a mark on it. It's like a bare patch of "not shiny" which is crescent shaped, possibly from the bottom of a vase or mug, but it's not a white mark. It's a small defect, and whilst I could have the whole table removed and sent for restoration I use the table and don't want it away and it's not so big that it's horribly noticeable, in fact often covered with my seasonal items.

Any wisdom gratefully received. Picture is my Autumn things on it, and doesn't show the damage, not helpful I realize

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Feel free to post larger in focus photos.

Impossible to tell if it has been French Polished.

Depends how far the mark has gone.

To do properly it would need to be stripped and repolished, lol, so dinky can easily be done on site.

If the finish is sound and not crazed and no one has put pledge or other silicone (kryptonite to refinishing) type finishes it might be able to be cleaned and polished over the top.

With some 4lb cut button shellac you should be able to bury any blemish if it isn't too deep, I buried an entire 5 leaf mahog board room table at LVMH the total cheapskates as rhey would'nt pay for a strip.

In the mean time you could reduce the effect by cleaning it, sanding very carefully with the grain with some P400 stearated Silicon Carbide paper like 3M trimite or Sia Siarexx 1748 (fold in half, tear, fold half sheet into thirds, use by hand) Then apply a very high build wax like Mylands Traditional (make aure it's Gedges 1884 recipe) beeswax and carnauba with 0000 wire wool.

That should lessen the look of the damage, although it will turn a full grain finish into a 'wire and wax' high satin.

Reminds me of the ambulatory to The Common Room in The Law Society that I did many moons ago. Maybe that was used for waiters to organise refreshments on before they entered the room.

 

[Toby Newell]

Its a fairly easy repair for someone with the relevant knowledge and skills. If you have a good antiques restorer nearby its the kind of job he/she could do very quickly. That said a novice could ruin the piece all too quickly.

lol, fixing a rocket engine is easy for someone with the relevant knowledge and skills...

 

[a twig]

Repairing the rocket engine is the easy bit, refuelling it is usually the exciting part. I always recommend Ignition! by John D. Clark as a very accessible and enjoyable tour through quite how lethal most rocket fuels are.

 

[Gothichome]

Toby, I should have been clearer in my “original shellac “ statement. I know the floors had been refinished, long before our ownership of the home, they were refinished a long time ago, at least that’s what I gleaned from the patina, So suspect early 60’s. That is when the owners we bought from purchased the home. They just recoated with shellac and much to my dismay painted all the woodwork white. May have been done earlier than that.

 

[Toby Newell]

Repairing the rocket engine is the easy bit, refuelling it is usually the exciting part. I always recommend Ignition! by John D. Clark as a very accessible and enjoyable tour through quite how lethal most rocket fuels are.

you don't need to tell Nasa that... (or Blue Origin for that matter)

btw. has anyone mentioned to anyone in Govt. pushing Hydrogen boilers that maybe they should do some research?

Average scrub per Shuttle mission, 3.5 scrubs. Most common reason? Hydrogen leaks.

SLS is currently mankinds most expensive vehicle, designed and built by NASA with a budget of Billions. It only involves the movement and storage of a few hundred tons of hydrogen across a few miles of pipes.

Is it logical to assume then that the geniuses at British Gas and other utilities famous for their organisation, infrastructure investment and reluctance to take large profits will be able to build out and maintain millions of tons of the stuff over thousands of miles when some of the best engineers on the planet with an R&D budget of Billions cannot.

Maybe they should speak to s Scientist who can tell them, it's quite small.

Although maybe not MIT.

lol. at the shocking level of current journalistic intelligence. Even MIT's own online journal is farcical.

Observing hydrogen’s effects in metal

A method developed at MIT allows observation of metal during hydrogen penetration, which could help in developing new hydrogen storage methods and in preventing hydrogen embrittlement of metals.

news.mit.edu

"Hydrogen, the second-tiniest of all atoms"

Which is a fantastic first line for an MIT article.

Somewhat dissapointingly no where else in the rest of the article does he bother to mention his obvious Nobel Prize winning discovery of the smallest one.

 

[Toby Newell]

Toby, I should have been clearer in my “original shellac “ statement. I know the floors had been refinished, long before our ownership of the home, they were refinished a long time ago, at least that’s what I gleaned from the patina, So suspect early 60’s. That is when the owners we bought from purchased the home. They just recoated with shellac and much to my dismay painted all the woodwork white. May have been done earlier than that.

looks like PU varnish to me. Floors would have been left bare with a bituminous border. Occasionally some would wax the middle at some point. Unlikely to have been show wood unless Douglas Fir or Pitch pine.