Comparing durability of 12 hardwood floor finishes for refinishing

so as a Harvard floor refinisher I get asked quite often what's the best type of Harvard floor finish to use is water-based better than oil base is a commercial finish worth the extra cost I usually say they're about the same as far as water base and oil base and the commercial finish is worth the extra cost but I've never really sure 100% what's the best value or what's the best in general so in this video I'm gonna try to answer that question and more I'm gonna do this by comparing 12 popular polyurethane finishes they're all satin I've got four oil base I got eight water base and I'm gonna do a controlled scratch and abrasion test on them on a sample board right here okay so that twelve finishes I picked up are bona wood-lined poly wood floor finish fair Athene's professional 1100 satin dura seals master line polyurethane we got Minwax is super fast drying oil-based polyurethane for floors men waxes water-based oil modified polyurethane we had Vera Thane Diamond wood finish we got dura seals master line water-based polyurethane then we got Norton poly way 2500 wood floor finish and poly way 3500 wood floor finish then onto bond Omega waterborne wood floor finish and then Bonham mega one wood floor finish and traffic HD commercial satin and all these are for floors so before I start scratching I kind of walk you through how I made this sample board and how I also made a device to scratch the floor nice and evenly throughout all the finishes alright so I started off with some reclaimed engineered maple this stuff has a nice thick wear layer and I'm choosing maple because it's one of the harder of the hardwood so it'll really put the finish into the test it's also a nice light colored wood so it'll show the shade and how amber each of the finishes are so the sample board I'm making here is gonna be four by seven so each of the twelve finishes will be a little over two square feet I cut the ends flush and then I nailed the boards and to kind of keep the sample board together and make it strong then after drying overnight I sanded it kind of like a wood floor if I starting with forty grits on the big machine and then on the edge here I used 40 grit on pole to take off this aluminum ox finish gonna give the thorough vacuuming and trowel fill the whole thing using a maple water based wood filler then after dried Poli I sanded off the filler using a 100 grit in Baltic Clark edger and a big belt sander until all the surface filler was off and then I just kind of gave it a final once-over using 100 grit on the palm sander okay right here I'm dividing the sample board into two so I can stain half of it and I'm doing this so each of the 12 finishes can be tested over a natural part so you can see finish color and a darker stain part to help trying to show off the scratches better and right here water popping before is staying to help the maple absorb the stain nice and evenly and then after the water thoroughly dries I apply bonnet jacobean this Dane is compatible with oil and water-based finishes so you put it on thick and then you wipe up all the excess that after the stain drives over night I divided the board into twelve equal areas each exactly 2.1 square feet so for all of these polyurethane finishes the manufacturer says how thick to apply them so here it says to apply between five and six hundred square feet per gallon so I'll split that and apply it at 550 square feet per gallon but all these samples I'm making here are 2.1 square feet so in that case at 550 square feet per gallon it would have to be fourteen point two millimeters or milliliters and I thought it would add 15% to each of these samples just to allow for the extra waste at the when the brush absorbs the finish so in that case it would be 16 milliliters for that sample air you have to play one square feet and as for solvent I used of course mineral spirits for oil base and water for the water base I'll also let you know the cost I paid for each of these finishes per gallon and then I'll divide that by the rate each of these finishes cover per gallon and then they'll come up with this price per square foot for the cost of each of these finishes the numbers might not be that accurate for you though because of your location where you live what store you went to the sales guides mood plus I'm Canadian a ok so the first product I start with is bona wood line poly this is an oil base and it's the smelliest one of the bunch of 510 BOC s so that's slightly higher than some of the all the other ones it takes 8 to 12 hours to dry this is the court but to buy a gallon of this stuff would cost me 49 76 and it covers a 500 square feet per gallon so that would cost me 10 cents per square foot per coat or 30 cents per square foot if you want to for all three codes I use a combination of a scale and the markings on the side of this measuring cup to measure the quantity this product kind of looks honey-colored and seems a little thicker than the other finishes this is actually a very popular product possibly the one of the most popular oil-based finishes that professionals use around here I've used this stuff lots and as with all these products he's a t-bar and a cutting pad to apply them not a little foam brush like on this sample board this stuff seems to dry slightly less amber than the other oil-based ones here too okay so for the second one it's called Vera themed professional 1100 satin it's also an oil base and as for smell it's a 502 VOCs and it's dry time is a three or four hours sometimes I'll find that if they have faster dry times it may make the smell seem worse because it'll start drying and flashing off sooner and faster while you're still there applying it so it cost me 70 $4.99 per gallon so that's 14 cents per square foot per coat the stuff seems darker and it drives more amber than the wood line I've used this stuff before but I can't really remember too much about it but it seems to go on nice and smooth here so this one's called master line polyurethane it's made by dura seal it says a commercial grade on it so we'll see about that this one's 492 VOCs and takes 8 to 10 hours to dry and maybe I got some sort of sale or something on this one but it was by far the cheapest at 40 176 per gallon and it goes on at a rate of 550 square feet per gallon so that works out says only 7 cents per square foot per coat I've used this stuff a few times a real floors don't have any footage of that it seems to go in a little thinner which makes it nice and easy to apply at least for me alright so the fourth and final oil base on the sample board it's Minwax is polyurethane for floors it comes in at 350 VOCs so it's less toxic than the rest of the oil-based ones um it dries in 6 to 8 hours it set me back $59.99 that actually goes on really thin at 650 square feet per gallon making it one of the thinnest and that makes also work out to 9 cents per square foot so it's also second cheapest the color of this stuff is quite dark it's the darkest and after had tried has seemed the most amber I've never used this stuff before and was having trouble with it it seemed like it was streaky with each code applied it couldn't really fix that I know people use this stuff and it turns out good for them so maybe I just did something wrong but I definitely couldn't figure it out okay now for the water-based finishes this one's another Minwax polyurethane so this is a water base oil modified so its solvent is water but it's actual modified which I assume is to give it a bit of a amber color the 275 VOCs it has makes it the highest for all the water base I have here it's dry time is 2 hours it cost 60 $4.99 per gallon which would cover 500 square feet and so it's a decent 13 cents per square foot per coat it has a bit of a yellow tint to it and it dries with a bit of amber this also goes on quite nice I've never actually used this on the floor but maybe I'll try at least use this stuff up like this all right next one up is a bear things diamond wood finish and it has 275 VOCs which also is one of the highest water-based ones here it dries in two or three hours and costs me 80 bucks per gallon and this stuff goes on quite thick it's a second thickest at all 12 of these finishes at 425 square feet per gallon which will also make it the second most expensive at eighteen cents per square foot per coat which will start to add up up to three coats and right out of the can this stuff looks very light and bright but it does dry clear and light I don't think I've used this stuff enough floor before and the white whiteness of this finish as you can see in this clip right here on this coat is very handy to tell how evenly it goes on and see if there's pools of finish lying around so for the next six finishes they all call for some type of a sanding sealer so in the unstained areas for the next six finishes I'll apply a sanding sealer instead of a first coat for those products so one coat sealer and two coats product for the unstained areas whereas the others will have all three of the same eventually all sample areas stained or not will have three coats of finish because the sealer counts as a coat and as for sealer I'm using a banach classic seal Bona makes other sealers to City control what kind of shade or huuu you want your floor Norden also make some sealers all right next finish is another master line polyurethane this one's a water-based one though and it also says a commercial grade on it to cost me fifty ninety-eight covers five hundred feet as so that's ten cents per foot per coat and as the cheapest water-based one here I've never used this one before but we'll have to try it sometime all right next one up is a Norton's poly way 2500 this one goes this one's a 210 VOCs and cost me 70 onine this stuff goes on quite thin at 650 square feet per gallon so that's almost the cheapest water-based one at 11 cents per square foot per code this finish seems different than the rest I've used I've used this stuff quite a lot in floors it feels slippery when applying it but it's it's quite easy to work with it doesn't seem to clog up sandpaper between coats though but at the end has a nice smooth look when it dries it'll be interesting to see you tough this stuff is alright next is norton's poly weigh 3,500 so this is one step up from the last one this stuff is by far the least toxic at 95 VOCs it cost me 100 five fifty and it covers 650 square feet per gallon so that's sixteen cents per square feet per coat I've used this stuff once before and seems about the same as a 2500 maybe with a little bit more grain raised next is the popular bona Omega and it's 200 VOCs it cost me 89 99 to cover 550 square feet so that's 17 cents per square foot per coat the price of this stuff kind of goes up and down a lot though I probably use this stuff more than all the other stuff combined because this is a standard for residential floors around here next is banas newest finish I'm cracking for my first time right here it's a non yellowing clinician it's called mega one - pretty epic name I think they're the one refers to being a one-part single component whereas previously banas non-yellowing finish involved mixing two parts together it's a 205 VOCs cost me in 94 95 per gallon covering 550 square feet so that's 17 cents per square foot per ko and yeah I thought I'd tried this stuff out on on this board just can I test it out this would be great over light-colored floors that might be prone to showing the yellowing of the finish over time all right last but not least Bona traffic this one's a two-part mixture and banas commercial finish it's only 150 VOCs so it's actually the second least toxic this cost me at 164 99 but I've seen it over 200 at some places and that goes on the thickest at 375 square feet per gallon so that's 44 cents per square foot and that's two and a half times the cost compared to the second most expensive it's a pretty tricky to apply as thick as I asked for I've used this stuff lots and it's really great for commercial areas this shot shows it freshly done and this this clip here shows it after exactly one year of use in front of a bar at a popular restaurant also this stuff is great for just adding a top coat over top of an existing finish I've seen here because it's great for adhering to kind of questionable finishes especially when you use in combination with Bona prep I put three coats of finish on the floor and it sounded in between each coat I'll spare you all that footage and that my wife neatly labeled all the samples in sample area and but since one of the finishes said something about a 30-day dry time we had lots of time to come up with a device to scratch these floors and this is what I came up with we named it the Otto scratcher and I made it out of layers of MDF glued together then my wife painted it up its sole purpose is to create nice consistent scratches throughout these samples nice and even so the middle part pivots independently the wheels and moves up and down and the groove on top is made to hold a weight of a dumbbell like up to 25 pounds but can also put on lighter weights if necessary the bolts sticking in the back of her mounting the different attachments and as for attachments I made three of them the first two have nails sticking out ones nice and sharp and the other one's not quite as sharp and the third attachment has velcro on the bottom that's to attach different grits of sandpaper I have 36 grit to 150 grit here all them you have just mount right up to the back of the device and I kind of choose what a weight I want and then you're good to go oh this board I have is just gonna to see how it works and and actually yeah it seems like it works then scratches it quite nicely I was having some trouble pulling at a consistent speed and not sure if that matters but just in case it did I I built this it's a winch up to a battery and then hooked to a switch and it does the trick perfectly it pulls it nice and smooth and consistently Oh a side note this sample board is half satin and half matte and the satin side shows scratches more solar sample berth is sitting in the corner of our house for the last almost two months now because I haven't got around to this but anyways I'm finally ready to start scratching so let's do this alright for the first test I'm going to use the kind of dollar of the to nail bits and I'm gonna use that with the 20-pound dumbbell alright see ya see this goes [Applause] yeah one pulls it a little crooked but as long as it stays in the sample think I'll be fine all right so the first test is complete just 12 scratches on this board now they all handled it pretty well I'm just gonna tell you the subtle differences only a one spot it looked like through penetrated the finish into the stain and it was on the Minwax oil oil base one and I kind of hit the edge of a board so maybe I just kind of snagged it a little bit there it seems like the Verte dying would finish probably had the whitest looking scratch even though it definitely didn't go through anywhere and actually is interesting the bond and mega seems like it scratches whiter than the bond at mega one or traffic and both Pauling waves did pretty good alright for this test going to use them the sharper the nail heads and they're gonna use a three pound weight put it on this gentle eye also straighten the wheels this time so hopefully it's not so crooked [Applause] with this nail and only three pounds weight it pretty much did nothing for any of these samples all right so for the next test I'm gonna use the sound paper attachment for this thing it's got 36 grit sandpaper on it and this stuff is extremely aggressive it's actually made for taking off the hard pre finishes so none of this stuff should really have much of a chance it's gonna tear right through it I also have 12 different pieces of sandpaper so I can't change the sandpaper between each grit clog or thing like that when I'm also using the 25 pound weight this time so it's gonna be the heaviest weight I put on this one right here okay so that test is done there's not a whole lot of difference in between each of them they all look very similar if I were trying to pick it apart I'd say that the very thin wheel base probably showed the scratches the most and maybe the poly waves are doing good the northern 3,500 probably showed it maybe the least out of this test the poly ways and Bona ones slightly better than the rest so far okay so for this test I going back to the nail this is the more blunt nail and now she sharpened it up slightly and I'm gonna use a 25 pound weight instead of the 20 pound weight this time so this is gonna definitely start digging up those finishes I'm pretty sure okay so that test is done if there wasn't so much of a difference in between them again both bear things probably dug in the most and the Nortons and the Bonas seem to do the best all right so for the next test I'm gonna use the sharp nail and I'm gonna start on the other side of the board and work my way this way just in case a nail somehow does get dull I'm gonna switch it up and start from the other side of Bona Bona traffic with this sharp nail and a 20-pound weight it's pretty much more the same the Vera Thane and Minwax kind of oil-based ones are kind of the showing the scratch is the most and then though the Nortons and the faunas are doing the best okay so none of those tests are doing too much this time I'm gonna really make a difference I sharpen the sharp one so that's like super sharp now I'm gonna put the heaviest 25 pound weight on it so it's gonna make a difference now I'm also going to start from the this other side again the the commercial traffic side so that really kind of kill that Bolla finish more so I'll wipe it off so you can see see if it's through the finish and clean it up here alright so that test pretty much just went through the finish on all of them just kind of annihilated them so for this next test I'm kind of try to like replicate like have more of a long term with the abrasion 150 grit screen and I'm gonna use my arms and do maybe like 10 repetitions on each one with the 25 pound weight and see how that goes [Applause] [Music] where's the earplugs for this test the sandpaper sound seemed to dig in and create little piles of dust everywhere the oil bases all look the same though they all have quite big piles of dust and then the water-based ones do for the most part both Norton Pali ways didn't really sound well so they might be doing pretty well and then the bonus did pretty good but mega one seem to weighting is by having the least amount of dust in at least one of scratches it seemed to have won this one all right so I cleaned up the finishes and I'm starting to be able to tell that starting to wear through the wear layer a bit so I think I can do one more quick sound paper test this time I cut up a hundred and fifty grit sandpaper that's not screen I'm going to use a 20-pound weight just to help go through the finish a little bit more re for the hundred and fifty great I went through all the samples games kind of more the same therapy diamond has a thick wear layer but it seems like if the finish comes off faster than anything else the very faint professional for an oil-based an all right and bought omega1 and traffic they held up really well along the Nortons alright so this is the final test and it's um the blunt nail a bit it kind of made sure it's nice and rounded over if the piece of sandpaper I'm stacking twenty-five pound dumbbells so it'll be 50 pounds on air I'm gonna try to scratch it beside this is the part that's already sanded on each of these samples and then be good test Scully test Mia for furniture she said that that was an interesting test because it's 50 pounds on that thing until I like a furniture wait about half of the finishes it broke through the finish layer and half of them it didn't traffic was by far the best on this it just looked really good across the whole thing the norden's look pretty good which one was it oh the Minwax water base was all right on this one the very thing the very thing professional did all right on the furniture test too okay so now I'm going to finish up and let you know how I like these finishes how I rank them from first to last in first place big surprise is bonnet traffic it goes on thick and it takes quite a bit to wear off the finish and even somehow when the furniture dent tests it seem to indent less than the other finishes here's it compared to Vera Dean diamond here's two compared to master lion oil base here it is compared to Polly wait 3,500 I would say though that's very hard to apply as thick as they asked for even with the roller and if you don't apply it that thick it probably wouldn't have these great wear results my second place is a three-way tie and that's in between bond omega1 and both the poly waves at 2500 and at 3500 and these finishes did not scratch easy and the scratches were white and the finish didn't come off in piles either like some of the other ones and the 2500 is quite inexpensive also so third place is a time between Minwax is water-based oil modified at Barnum mega that both these finishes did pretty good the finished didn't wear it through to the stain but the piles of finish were a bit bigger than the last ones and also the finish didn't break through on the furniture drag test either so fourth place is another three-way tie and they're all oil base Bona would like poly bear theme professional and master line oil polyurethane and they're all starting to show the beginning signs aware where they're getting to point through the finish and they're also starting to see a couple little chips on the furniture drag test so now if its place it's a very thin diamond and I have very high hopes for this one he said how thick this went on it was very consistent to look really good but all about finish its war right off into big piles on the on the abrasion test and it scratched the whitest it got destroyed on the furniture test so and the stuff was not cheap either so for sixth place we've got to wait I and that's in between Minwax is oil polyurethane and master lines water polyurethane and both of these finish just wore right through the finish and they also got annihilated on the furniture break test more than any of these other finishes it guess it's possible that my measurements were slightly off and a point three code to this stuff but I don't think that would affect how white it scratches or how much finish came off when I did the abrasion test so what's more durable water base or oil-based well the most durable is water-based and also one of the least durable is water base oil and the oil bases are kind of in the middle and if you want to achieve a nice yellow look the oil bases could be perfect but some of the more expensive water base did best in my test here today anyways I hope this video was of some help to you deciding what finish you want and thanks for watching

Channel: Seth Miller

Views: 428,233

Keywords: whats the best floor finish?, floor scratch test, hardest floor finish, comparing polyurethanes, popular polyurethanes, floor finish test, floor wear test, Whats the best hardwood floor finish, water based vs oil based for floors, best polyurethane, comparing hardwood floor finishes, best finish for refinishing floors, hardest hardwood floor finish, polyurethane scratch test, waterborne vs oilborne, best floor varnish, most durable floor finish, strongest wood floor finish

Id: bi_IBxrNxcA

Length: 23min 50sec (1430 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 05 2019