Wood Preservative for indoors
Would you happen to have advice about what to use on stair treads. Our house is 115 years old, and the staircase is sound but the wood of the stair treads and risers need some love.. It seems dry, splintering on the edge in places, and it’s grain is raised, possibly due to steaming the carpet that was installed over them. I would like to clean them up, with a light sanding, seal the wood and recarpet them.
The products out there range from paints, “natiural” oils and varnishes of various kinds. Including spar varnish, tung oil, linseed oil, polyurethane etc.. it is not oak but a coarse grained wood I can’t identify.
markwalker
in General Discussion 4 years and 6 months ago
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andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
so, oxalic acid is still made and commonly referred to as wood bleach and it does blonde wood. i am wondering if you are thinking of TSP. i think the modern tsp is some substitute.
you will have to put something on them to keep them from splintering.
bob, we used to put wax on floors all the time. i am hoping to do my stairs with some and if it is slippery, i will advise.
markwalker | 4 years and 5 months ago
After reading thiese comments, I think i do not want to strip the wood , but clean it up so it will not splinter. I have an old small hand sander . There are some cracks in a few of the risers, on the wall side, so I would not use a drill sander attachment or anything.
As to the methylene chloride … I have stripped lots of furniture, with it. We used to apply that thick Rock Miracle with a brush, scrape off the goo then go over the wood with Zip Strip, a liquid type remover. I always wore a vapor mask and gloves. That Zip Strip was nasty!
But Zip Strip was pretty good at taking off the wood stain under the varnish.
I prefer the reformulated Rock to that orange stuff recently introduced, but since Zip Strip is no longer made I’ve had a harder time getting that annoying 1900 reddish “cherry” color off anything. That harsh color which was used to make assorted kinds of wood more harmonious in color when building cheaper homes. My experiments with denatured alcohol and minerals spirits was disappointing. In the past I have used oxalic acid(illegal since t he 80s) and “oxalic acid substitute “ Thise products make wood “blonde” rather than its natural raw color., and require lots of water to rinse them down.
locksmithempire
in General Discussion 4 years and 5 months ago
Carpet works wonders on stairs like this. Beautiful hardwood stairs will be ruined by the addition of carpeting because the tack strips need to be nailed down, creating holes in the wood.
http://www.carpetcleaningforce.co.nz/
hkapstein | 4 years and 5 months ago
@bob if you know what went on it, and you’re happy with that finish, I’d say recoat with the same. I agree a poly over spar could be a problem. You won’t know unless you try, but why try?
hkapstein | 4 years and 5 months ago
Steve, I think you’ll agree, don’t advise someone to use methylene chloride indoors when doing their first stripping project. It ain’t worth it for this project, and it could really mess you up. Just use a heat gun if you want to remove that paint, but I’m telling you , if you’re gonna carpet over it, just do it and worry about it at the next reno.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 5 months ago
Thanks Steve. I have a couple of cans of paste wax. Does that really give any substantial additional protection? Also, would it make the stairs slippery?
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
bob, it would be easier to wax it. you can really put wax over anything unless if is really well scratched or worn trough. use a hard wax. hard wax will not be harder than the marine and you are correct, do not put a hard finish over soft, it will come off.
i have an old collectible can of butchers paste wax here that i was saving for someone. it might have a little wax left in it :-).
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 5 months ago
Regarding stripping paint, what about using a heat gun?
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 5 months ago
Steve—when it’s time to re-coat should I continue with the marine poly? It doesn’t seem like putting a hard finish over a soft one would be a good idea.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
so this is the difference between marine varnishes and interior poly and at first thought, it will not make sense. the marine varnishes are SOFTER than the interior varnishes. yes, you read that correctly; the interior varnish is the harder product. that is because the exterior varnishes must flex with all the changes on the wood brought on by the changes in temperature and humidity. Marine varnish is also more expensive than say interior poly (a quart of Pettit Captains Spar is about the same price as a gallon of Last n Last oil base floor finish).
here is another difference: you can build marine varnish to 20 coats if you wish but if you did that with interior floor finish it would chip off because it is so hard. they tell you on the cans of interior floor poly (oil) (for those of us who read directions) to apply one seal coat and two full coats and no more. and there is a reason for this-
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
i do not really see any dishing. it is 12 coats of paint on the sides where the carpet was.
that is going to be a pain to sand off and it has a lot of lead in it, underneath. a less experienced sander will take an aggressive wheel to remove that fast and try to work it into the corners and will gouge the wood with the edge of the wheel or will ride to much on places that the paint has come off of and lower those spots and then you will have to call guy like me to sand the each tread off. and trust me, i teach people how to sand all the time and then they go and do what i tell them not to do and then we look at each other and wonder why the surface is uneven.
this is what i would do and do not use lye. get some methylene chloride and ventilate the house and use it to remove the paint (follow the safety directions; air is important). you will get right into the corners. and do not bother with any other paint removers (when they banned the methylene we tried everything else and then i found out as a business i can still get the stuff and the day i learn ed that i went right back to it) and the ones they made to replace the methylene is flammable and i am not sure what is worse, burning your house down or dying of exposure to methylene but i am 57 and have used that product since i stripped an antique mirror frame when i was 13 years old. you can still buy methylene chloride, you will have to sign some papers. call rock miracle (they are in brooklyn). if they will not sell it to you because you do not have a business (i can almost post the forms they send me to purchase it here for you, but won’t), get a federal tax id number in your name (no, having one does not mean you have to file a tax return, it is like have an ss# only for a business; i still have mine from when i was a sole proprietor) and then they should accept the “fact” that you are in business as a sole prop. look on line, there are companies that will ship methylene to you for less than rock mir.
by the way, talk about incompetence. we have used methylene chloride for decades. i have used it for decades. all of a sudden they have to outlaw it for use by the general public because of the dumbing down of our trades people, people who do not understand that: 1. read the directions and follow them like we were taught to do in first grade and 2. if it smells like it will kill you, it probably will kill you and you need a lot of air around you when you use it. this is common sense and because some people do not understand that, the rest of us have to change our lives and the way we have been doing things since rock miracle opened for business in 1938.
RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 4 years and 5 months ago
FWIW the artist who painted designs on the risers of our ground floor stairway a couple of years ago also sanded the treads and put on a few coats of poly marine varnish left over from our front doors. That’s probably not the optimal finish, but it’s held up well and shows no sign of wear.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
its heart pine.
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 5 months ago
urbandad thank you for deferring to me,
i have the very same grainy wood on my stairs and it will finish up nicely. it is not ash. it is a soft wood and i think it is a very old growth and dense (hard) pine. this is sort of a guess. but the grain when finished does look like ash or oak and i was looking at some pine doors a few days back and had to look twice before i decided it was pine. I think that has to do with it being old growth, unfarmed wood (slower growing and tighter grain) (i will ask Erich about this at adriatic as he has a degree in forest products and see what he says; adriatic also carries hard pine stair tread but the grain is wider and i do believe that modern tree farming aims for faster growth each season, creating wider grain we see on the modern treads).
if you have a lot of grain rise, it could be because someone walked on it without finish on it and the soles of hard shoes will eat at the soft wood between the grain and leave the harder wood. i have a little of that occurring on my steps now (from wearing work boots in the winter ) and soon i will have to address it with a coat of poly). as you sand these, you may find that the soft wood sands away faster. a sanding sealer may help stabilize the soft wood a bit. but use on that is dewaxed so that you can stain the wood after using the sanding sealer, if that is what you decide to do. then you will have to put a seal coat of poly and then two coats of FLOOR (high build) poly (if you do oil).
at this point, with the maintenace issues, i am very sorry i did not refinish my stairs with water base finish (and i am not yet convinced we can put water base over old oil) as it can be recoated fast. with oil, we have to coat every other step one day and do the others the next.
if you are considering finishing these, let me know and i will post a photo of mine. when i first did mine i got a lot of oohs and ahhs from visitors who looked at the stairs.
hkapstein | 4 years and 6 months ago
Looks more like dish out than grain raise, but let’s see what steve thinks. It’s most likely pine. Personally I’d do one of two things. One would be hire a floor guy to refinish them nicely, and then use them with or without a runner, obviously the runner will save a lot of wear and tear. Two would be carpet over them as you describe and not do anything else that’s not required to install a carpet. If the goal is to preserve them for future refinishing, I doubt whatever you are going to do now will make them more successful, and possibly it could be detrimental IMHO.
Now you may feel that the wood is “drying out” and needs to be oiled up or something to prevent it from disintigrating. Bob Flexner explores this concept in Understanding Wood Finishes, and explains that the idea that wood needs to be oiled, nourished, fed, or moisturized is a marketing concept that is not correct. The purposes of finishing are mostly to protect the wood from moisture, to improve the appearance of the wood, to prevent abrasive damage to the wood, and in some cases to prevent UV damage to t he wood.
Some poly might provide protetion from spills or perhaps the steam cleaning, but it would also need to be sanded off for refinishing in the future, which would be detrimental.
markwalker | 4 years and 6 months ago
Sorry, here is the photo. [Thumbnail_IMG_1192](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s2/:brownstoner:d9g3:thumbnail_img_1192.jpg.jpg)
Looking more closely I believe this might be ash-wood.
markwalker | 4 years and 6 months ago
Photo attached. We have at least four kinds of wood in this staircase:.
We do like wall to wall as this is a 2 family house. I’d like to clean the steps up because I hate simply hiding a mess. The last carpet was office type carpet and the “steam” process actually soaks the carpet while an extractor machine similar to a shop vac pulls the dirty water out. It is hard to say why the raised grain but it is now very ‘textured’
andriywww1990 | 4 years and 6 months ago
we would rather a carpet runner here but it is so much easier to sweep bare stares.
hkapstein | 4 years and 6 months ago
But with a carpet on top? The poly will protect from abrasive wear, but that shouldn’t happen under a carpet, and if you want to restore them later you’ll be refinishing anyway. If by carpet you mean a stair runner where the wood is partly exposed that would be different . I’m picturing a wall to wall carpet type finish.
Perhaps the goal is to protect from steaming, but carpet is routinely installed on unvarnished plywood.