Wood Floor Fillers
by Hal Rusche owner, Clean Wood
Floors of Cincinnati
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*****88All hardwood floors get filled during installation,
sanding, finishing and use. If you take a close look at any prefinished wood
flooring, right out of the box you will see that it has been filled. There are
many different types of wood floor fillers; some are designed for general
application where others are more specific. The purpose of this article is to
remove some of the confusion about fillers and to help people choose the right
one. |
| Latex Wood Floor Filler |
| *****88The most
common and widely used wood floor filler is latex. Latex filler is water based,
stainable similar to soft wood, easy to apply and sand. All manufacturers
produce their fillers is several popular |
| colors, many provide
colored fillers to match most wood species including imported woods. Almost all
fillers come premixed and ready to use, a few can be purchased in a powder form
that need to be mixed by the user. If your filler is not properly matching the
color of your wood floor, you can mix different colors together or add
something else to affect the color. The way that the color was originally
produced was by using universal colorant, therefore you can tweak the color by
adding more or different universal colorants. A few things that I have used to
alter the color of wood filler are; latex paint, chocolate syrup and food
coloring. Some wood flooring |
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| contractors mix oil based stain into their latex wood floor filler,
apparently it works although it doesn't sound like a good idea to me, possibly
water base stain would be a more compatible colorant. |
*****88 Latex
filler is made of; clay, calcium carbonate, wood fiber, universal colorant,
water and some kind of binder. One natural binder that I can think of is egg
yolk, without a binder the filler will crumble and fall apart after the water
evaporates.
*****88Latex wood floor filler is not an adhesive, it will not
glue the floor boards together and can not be used to glue a chip or sliver of
wood into a floor. This filler can be thinned by adding more water to it, if
your want to skim the entire floor, full trowel filling, to seal the grain
during the sanding process more water will be needed, but realize that the more
water is added the greater the amount of filler shrinkage you will get. Large
voids require several applications.
*****88When latex filler is wet, it is close to
the color that it will be after it is sealed with polyurethane, varnish or wax.
This filler needs to be under a coating of something, if not it will dissolve
and leave a latex haze when ever the floor is cleaned with water based
cleaners.
*****88There
is one trick that I have used colored latex filler for that is time consuming
and labor intensive but it works. When you work for home builders you will
always be asked to do things that are not right. You can protest but in the end
if you don't comply they will find someone else who will. The situation is that
you have a floor that has been finished and sitting in a house for a long while
that has no humidifier. The floor has gaps between most of the flooring boards
because the floor and the house are overly dry and the floor boards have become
dimensionally smaller. To properly swell the flooring back to the original
sizes would require the installation of a whole house humidifier and take at
least three months. To fix the problem I took several different colors of floor
filler, using them all and a putty knife, I filled the gaps in areas of about
nine square feet of flooring at a time. After filling each area I washed the
excess filler off of the floor using wet rags. I washed it again to remove most
but not all of the latex residue. When I was finished I would look at the areas
and if I could see the filled gaps too easily I worked a different color of
filler into the area to change the color of the gaps to be less noticeable. I
did this to the entire hardwood floor area. This process took so long that by
the time that I was finished filling the floor, most of the filler had dried.
Then, starting where the filler is the driest, I took a used 180 grit abrasive
screen under a heavy floor buffer and screened, vacuumed and coated the floor
with oil based polyurethane. Although not perfect, the improvement to the floor
was huge. |
| Prefinished Wood Floor Filler |
*****88Prefinished wood floor filler is not so widely used
because it is a fairly new product, expensive, dries out in the jar and gets
ruined if allowed to freeze. This filler is only used on floors that are
already finished, and prefinished hardwood floors. As always, it's best to work
with several colors at a time, I suggest one light one dark and one warm color
compared to the color of the floor. The different colors can be mixed together,
trying to match the color of the grain.Nnail holes should be made to match the
color aroud them.
*****88This filler has the same
ingredience as latex wood floor filler except the water has been replaced with
satin water based polyurethane. Therefore this filler stays almost the same
color after it dries as it is when it's wet. The nice attributes of this filler
is that after if hardens, it becomes water proof, therefore it needs no top
coat and it has a very low shrink rate. If you're filling a wood floor between
coats of water based polyurethane then this is the filler to use. If you're
filling an already finished floor or a prefinished floor with this product
always, wipe the filler and area off with a damp rag or a shinny spot will
appear around the spots that were filled. When using this filler, it helps to
carry small amounts of this filler around in a damp rag, the damp rag will keep
the filler from drying out while using it. This stuff will dry in your hand and
stick to your skin. You need to be careful not drop crumbs of this filler onto
the floor, if you step on them they will stick. |
| Wood Putty, Painters Putty |
| Lacquer Based Wood Filler |
| *****88Lacquer based wood floor filler is lacquer
and very fine wood dust. For best results, use fine edger dust from the floor
that is being sanded, mix it with lacquer to form a putty, and fill the floor
as needed. This filler is fast drying, gives off a lot of strong fumes and is
flammable. |
| Epoxy Floor Filler |
| *****88 I don't know how this
stuff is made. It is a two part system, you mix the parts together and a
chemical reaction causes the material to harden in five to twelve minutes. The
only thing that this filler is used for is to fill open knots is rustic floors,
before the sanding process. This material can run out the bottom of a knot, so
a couple applications may be necessary. Usually a black or dark brown pigment
is added to match the color of the knots. |
| Bondo |
*****88Bondo is a putty made of polyester resin
and cabosil, an inert filler, catalyzed by an organic peroxide. Bondo is not
really a wood floor filler, but years ago I did use it on a few floors and it
worked well. Bondo will not accept stain but if you color it to match the wood,
it will work fine on a natural floor.
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Clean Wood Floors of Cincinnati by Heritage Hardwood Floors,
Inc.
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