I posted this is the floor finishing section also. This is probably the better forum? Thanks for any help.

Hi all. I've had about 2200sqft. of Australian Spotted Gum installed and finished. Installer/Finisher is using all Bona products with Traffic finish.

Although overall the floors look very nice, there are some significant flaws that I see in the finish related to pooling of finish in areas, lap marks with "feelable" ridges, a couple of missed / dry spots on the second coat and some spots that are just rough - like the applicator was dragged through it after it started setting. In places it looks like the Traffic didn't level out well.

I also see some hairs and looks like pieces of filler etc. throughout (not terrible) - even though all air flow was off and the floor was vacumed and tacked several times.

The lap marks are in the center of a 30 ft. hall, and other defects are right where I will see them every day walking in the door, and the area of "dragging the applicator" is about 2 ft. wide.

I have attached pictures at
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0722.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0725.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0728.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0735.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0738.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0739.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0746.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0747.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0749.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0751.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0756.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0767.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0769.jpg
http://www.valacom.com/floors/dsc_0770.jpg

This guy has worked pretty hard to get the floors right and I think he's gone by the book on every step. But the finish seems to be challenging.

Please give me feedback on this and let me know how to approach it or if I am being to picky...

Thanks in advance.
Rob

I see what you mean. Those appear to be a missed spot along with applicator marks caused by either setting the applicator down and not feathering the finish or dragging wet finish over finish that is already dried somewhat. Let me say that on 2200 ft, you bound to get a few flaws in a "finish in place" floor. I think he could come back and spot repair those and blend the repair in. It may not be perfect but it should be an improvement. I usually have a few areas that need touching up on a large job like that. Maybe not quite as noticable as yours but the idea is the same. Customer sees some flaws in the finish. Calls the contractor. Contractor comes out and spot repairs the finish and then gets paid. Now everyone is happy.

Would a solution be to lightly sand the finish smooth and put another coat on?...Assuming the third coat might go on better than the last.

What is the best solution?

That is probably what you want to hear. Get another coat at no charge! But when I say spot repair, that's what I mean; fix those spots. If the overall job is acceptable except those areas, just fix those areas. Trust me, I've been at this 25+ yrs, if you're looking to have perfection, that's not going to happen, even if the guy gives ten coats. Let him do the spot repair first then see if the job is acceptable.

Any idea how much finish was used on each coat? Traffic calls for it to put down heavier than most other finishes to aid in the leaveling/flow. If you run it thin it will often streak beacuse you are reducing the open time . It's hard to get a good feel for the entire job from these photos because they are fixated on the flaws. some of these problems will be easier to spot repair some are going to require a little more skill.

Thanks for the responses. The installer used about 4 gallons of Traffic for the approx. 2000 -2200 sq. feet.

Installer agreed with almost all of the issues on the floor and his solution was to do spot repairs and see if it would help. The day before the repairs he decided to do a complete recoat in order to prevent patch marks.

He did the prep and recoat yesterday when I was not here. I'm afraid that he did not sand some of the larger areas of dry marks and relied on a recoat to fill them in because the exact same marks are in the same place. Other places it is obvious that he removed the marks before the recoat.

A bigger problem now is that he sanded some areas of the floor, but not all areas. Where he sanded are very obvious swirls or spider webbing - you can see very obious swirl marks throughout 1/2 the floor now. No swirl marks where he did not sand. My wife almost cryed when we saw it last night.

So now 1/2 the floor has swirl marks, some of the old problems were fixed, some remain, and there are new areas with lap marks and a few new dry marks.

Any recommendations on how to proceed?

Thanks.

I think the answer is obvious. If the finisher you hired is not capable of delivering the quality you desire, then you need another finisher. If it were me, I would call the original guy back one more time to discuss the floor and ask him how he feels about the way it looks and what he proposes to do about it. Hopefully, you have withheld some of the final payment so you can hire someone else. You need to impress upon the first finisher your dismay and that you need the work to be better than it is. Then you need to see what his response is. Swirl in the finish coat is from using too coarse of screen to buff the floors. I know how to fix your floors but I think you're better off finding someone local.

Rob,

Is that the satin or semi-gloss finish. Other than the spots you pointed out, your wood floor is very nice.

De

We used Traffic Semi Gloss. It does look nice but I'll tell you to make sure that you have a very experienced person to work with it. It's been tricky for this guy and he say's he's been in the business for a long time. I sense traffic may be somewhat new to him althogh he indicated it is the only thing he uses.

I'm finding that if there are areas that don't turn out well enough on a particular coat, the installer must get it smoothed back out almost perfectly before another coat or it just shows right through.

There are no short cuts.

Is it me or is that guy still kind of bashing the guy. Atleast the guy hung in there/left the customer happy WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!

Mr. Waters. I like your opinion on this issue. The installer never left the customer out to dry.
Thank you.
Ray

Well, here's the latest on this continuing project.
Furniture has been out of the house for 60+ days now.

First try at the Traffic finish resulted in lots of skip marks, lapmarks and pools along edges.

Second try - installer/finisher sanded out the skip marks, lap marks and pools and then sanded part of the floor. Result was that he either used to heavy a grit or had dirt in the sander which resulted in swirl marks all over the sanded areas, some skip marks/dry marks fixed, new ones created - same for lap marks and pools.

Third try - attempted to sand an buff down to where the swirl marks were. I think used 150, 180, 220, then maroon. Hand sanded around edges. Swirl marks were about 20% better, but new swirl marks in other areas, some dry marks fixed but an equal number of new ones - same for lap marks and pools around edges.

Original floor guy talked with Bona and recommends taking back down to wood and trying again with Traffic. I need to find out if he'll do some other type of finish.

Have had two other contractors look at it and recommend taking it back down to wood and applying an oil based poly or swedish finish. Both were not given any info on any other persons recommendations. They said have to take it down to wood to remove swirls and the oil based stuff will be easier to put on and in their opinion would look richer.

Talked to a third guy today that does mostly traffic and he recommended taking it back down to wood and applying tung oil.

Tired.

Any recommendations on finishes since Traffic does not seem to be working well on this job?

And Steve - don't construe facts as bashing. The original floor guy is a good guy and he's worked hard, but he'll also be the first to say that this is not working out well for a number of reasons, all which I have talked about pretty objectively considering our life is upside down.

Thanks.

First of all I must say that WE (myself and I'm sure others on this board) are very impressed at the efforts of the contractor to make this right. I know It doesn't feel like it right now, but I still believe this is going to work out in the end based on the continued patience (awesome patience) of the customer (you) and determined efforts by your contractor. I need to tell you that there are more than enough stories about contractors who just don't care about issues like these and even go so far as to make you feel like you and your house are the problem, go on about demanding thier money and telling you to deal with it. I applaud the effort on both sides.

Now, that being said, re-sand and go for the oil based finish. I strongly recommend Fabulon or Synteko, OMU and I do like tung oil as well. I prefer the Waterlox tung oil brand with thier recommended 4 coats (2 - sealer, 2 - satin finish). I recommend 3 coats applied with 10" padco applicators (flat, not round t-bar) for the Fabulon OMU and have found that 2 coats of the Synteko to be pretty convincing. Lambswool for the tung oil is recommended by manufacturer but I prefer to 'snowplow' it with a Padco or Sure-line applicator as well (less messy). I do agree that OMU/tungoil will be a "richer" finish however the H2O will indeed be more scratch resistant. BUT if you follow the recommendations found here on this site and take good care of your floor , the hardness factor may not be all that big a deal.

If this guy is truly willing to resand this floor and complete the job in OMU or tung oil, my hats off to the man. I hate to suggest this with all you have been through already, but maybe try to see your way to helping him with the added expense of the finish products in this deal. For a job this size he's going to be out at least one more week for lost production and about $450 for OMU or $600+ for tung oil. I know that shouldn't be your problem, but I would like to again point out how truly remarkable it is for this fella to be trying like he is to make it right.

Good Luck!

William - A continued thanks for the detailed feedback. It is much appreciated!!

Two questions:

1)One guy that I'm considering is recommending a swedish finish. Is this similar or the same to a OMU?

2) We have two dogs (labs). This spotted gum is hard as nails and they don't dent it or otherwise affect it. In your opinion, is a swedish finish or OMU to soft or would the combo of the hard wood and a fairly tough OMU or swedish finish be fine (realizing that traffic is a bit harder).

A last comment- the last traffic recoat was 2 weeks ago and we are seeing "white" lines in between many of the boards that look like "stress marks" in the traffic finish where there may be a tiny bit of normal expansion/contraction. Does this always happen with Traffic because it is so hard? - I presume it is more noticable on darker woods than lighter woods.

And does this same type of thing happen with OMU or Swedish finishes? Are they a bit more flexible to move a bit with the wood?

Thanks a lot!

I'm not a fan of Sweedish finish. Although my experience with it has been a bit limited so some out there may disagree with me. So let me just say this: There is a flooring company (box store) here locally that has supplied site finished floors over the years to a perticular builder. This store exclusively finishes with Baca Glitza Sweedish finish on ALL thier jobs and if you go into a Greenstone home that is what you will find. These homes are now beginning to hit about five years old and up since the last (and continued) building rage in our area. We have been regularly called into these neighborhoods to look at refinishing these floors by the current home owners. The major issue? Those floors are inundated with dog scratch marks. And just worn through in the trafic areas. The sad thing is that the dogs have only been in some of these for just a year or two. I'm not sure if what I am seeing is the same floor contractor being skimpy on the finish over and over again or if Baca just don't cut it with dogs.

My favorite Poly finish is Fabulon. Many of these refinish jobs (that I have followed up with) have commented that thier floor just seems to be holding up much better under thier dogs feet with the 3 coats of fabulon than it ever did with the previous finish.

Another reason I like the Fabulon is that I too use to notice those white lines on exotic woods (brazillian cherry was a regular culprit). I guess it has something to do with a higher natural oil content. When the wood moves naturally, the not so great adherance due to the oilier wood reflects at the joints where the tiny fractures are amplified by a bit of blistering at the joint(TO THE OTHER POSTER ON THIS THREAD: Check out the cover of the Oct./Nov. Hardwood floors magazine ... Is this what we're talking about???). I use to get that effect with another oil based poly but I have never gotten that with the Fabulon. Someone even once suggested a first coat in either tung oil or Duraseal Natural oil before coating to help correct this. I havent tried this since so far Fabulon, on its own, seems to do the trick.

Another quality I like about Fabulon as opposed to H2O based .. I NEVER see panelization occur when I use it. Any regular poster here can tell you about panelization. I see it primarily in the harder H2O based finishes. With that in mind ... do you have a humidifier on your system .... maybe you should think about one if you don't.

One 'con' to using Fabulon will be it's slower curing time. The label mentions that FULL cure is achieved in about a month. You can walk on it just fine and it is dry, however, the hardness will be fully achieved in a month or so. So, the dog will do its must damage in the first month (if at all). I had a customer recently thank me for teling him this ahead of time. I was concerned about his rush to move into this hose so quickly after a final coat (2000ft. Brazillian Cherry). I see him faily regularly because he owns the local Ace hardware. We crossed paths earlier this week and he said it was a real chore to not scratch the floor when they first moved in. Now he said that there is a real noticable difference in the hardness in the finish. He joked how he thought he might be regretful of at first of the finish scratching at the mear budge of a piece of furniture in those early days and how now he can't hardly make it scratch. Good news.

Anyway, those are my 2 cents ...

Press on and stay strong,