Radiata Pine gets a hell of a bad rap and it's all a little bit unfounded as far as I'm concerned.
What happens is many people with only a small bit of timber knowledge are way too quick to point out the Radiata Pine is soft, it dents easily and that it doesn't hold up to the rigors of a busy household.
True it is softer, when compared to say, Spotted Gum, Jarrah, or even Tasmanian Oak, but it's still not that soft that it can't be used as an excellent flooring material. Far from it.
From my way of thinking, there are a few things that need to be done to get the very best out of a Radiata Pine floor. Firstly, is the sanding has to be excellent. The biggest cause of wear in any floor, not just Radiata Pine, is poor uneven sanding. If the sanding is not done to a "Super Fine" level it will wear out fast, as foot traffic quickly knocks off the high spots left behind from poor sanding. So this is the first step in producing a fine Radiata Pine floor. Great sanding.
I've unfortunately seen way too many floors where as you look along the length of the boards you can see where the sanding machine has left deep 'grainy' type sanding lines in the timber, these can and should be sanded out prior to the floor being coated. With those lines sanded out and the floor being super smooth, it will have every chance of giving you years of service. Providing it has the right coating applied, which I will touch on shortly.
The thing that surprises many people is the degree of difficulty in sanding Pine. Because it is softer than the Hardwoods it's easy to assume that it should sand up quickly, but the problem is, the Pine boards have a high degree of Sap and a particular greasiness to them and that greasiness quickly gums up the sandpaper rendering it almost useless.
If we continue to sand with this gummed up sandpaper, it begins leaving great big, deep lines in the boards and the longer we press on with that piece of sandpaper the worse it becomes. So, because of this a lot of thought has to go into the sanding process to get it spot on prior to even thinking about coating it. This same problem also happens when we are using the edging machine, as once again the sanding discs become all clogged up with sap, making the paper worthless which in turn causes deep circular scratches around the edges of the floor.
So, all care has to be taken to get the best possible results.
Having carefully used our skills to produce an excellent floor, we are now ready to begin the finishing.
There are many various types of finishes currently on the market and all have their own place within the timber flooring market place, you can have an oil based finish, an oil modified polyurethane finish, a water based finish and various gloss levels of solvent based finishes.
All up, if you were to research all these products, it quickly becomes come quite a mind melt, trying to decipher all the jargon the marketing men attach to each of these different products.
So, what do I suggest?
I strongly lean towards two pac polyurethane to give you the best possible hard wearing finish. As nice and all some of these other finishes are, nothing else is as tough, as durable, or even looks like it can take the rigors of family living quite like two pac can .
With three coats of two pac polyurethane applied over excellent sanding, as pointed out above, ensures that your Radiata Pine is going to be a floor you will be pleased to live on for many years.
Please, have a close look at some of the pictures on this page and check out how smooth the sanding is and at the depth of the finish. I'm sure you will get some idea of what I've been talking about in regard to how good they can look and how long they can last, when sanded and coated the right way.
So, if someone tries to bag your Radiata Pine floor, or tell you it's not good enough to do, just smile and nod, 'cause now you know that what you have can be an awesome, hard wearing floor.
Clint.
