Hey everyone, my wife and I are building our dream house and were getting ready to sand and finish the new floors. The wood we used is a thermally modified birch 1x4 1/4". In a nutshell the birch is baked with steam at 210 degrees and it cooks the sap/sugar in the wood turning it chocolate brown. The wood becomes extremely stable as its dried to about 2.5% MC.
The only thing i can say for sure is that we want a semi gloss finish. I have done my research on the Bona traffic but my installer only uses lenmar oil based. Have any of you guys every finished thermally modified floors?

thanks
Sean

Thermally modified wood floors.

Looks like I have to spend more time reading and get out of the garden. I didn't realize these were being produced. Darned interesting, quite similar or identical to the way bamboo is darkened, but does not lose it's hardness. Charles Peterson mentions it.

hardwoodfloorsmag.com/articles/article.aspx?articleid=1458&zoneid=2

Sorry Sab. No help here on the finishing side. Peterson is a tough one to reach but you could try. I referred him to somebody else on a different issue, but no responses.

cpwoodfloors.com/

My only experience with these woods (vulcanized ,roasted,etc) is with musical instruments .After baking out the moisture and oils, the wood generally does not want to accept moisture , making the wood very stable. As far as I know, they can be finished but don't need to be.

But with flooring, the wood is going to get nasty if not finished so it must be able to be finished or else it will start to wear and probably grey out. Best thing to do is get some sample boards from the manufacturer and finish them and see what happens.

Regarding you contractor, Lenmar is a great oil based urethane but any pro contractor should be able to use water base finish competently as well.

here are some pics, hopefully i did this right


http://www.flickr.com/photos/79667953@N04/7301460152/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79667953@N ... hotostream