Greetings,

We've moved into an apartment with wood flooring and the finish/sealer has come off in places. I'm hoping to do some touch-ups here and there, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what type of finish it is.

It's a sort of milky/cloudy transparent finish that doesn't seem to permeate the wood. Please see an example of the problem in the link below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hzpBYhTKZB5qHN_Aia1u_FtKijg-UaNc/view?usp=sharing

Any hints would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,

Al

Has a the floor been flooded or wet? This is not normal wear. White colored floors are difficult to take care of when the finish starts to fail. If you add another coat of clear finish the worn areas really stand out. It may have been coated with the first coat of finish before the stain was completely ready.

Many thanks for your reply! No, it hasn't been flooded and I believe the finish is supposed to look like that - the entire floor is coated with this same cloudy finish. (I'm guessing it's a polyurethane finish of some sort.)

I've had some success replicating the finish by mixing soft wax with a clear wax finish, but it certainly would be easier if I could just recoat the worn areas with the mystery coating itself.

I think a white wax would be the best maintenance until you sand off the old finish and change color with all new finish.