Replies

1. 
   gulfstar | Dec 29, 2024 09:31pm | #1

   Why use shellac for a floor ?

2. 
   pantalones868 | Dec 30, 2024 05:14am | #2

   Why not? It was once commonly used on floors, particularly on 100 year + older houses. It is easy to apply ,easy to repair and drys quickly.
   As to the question.... I generally mix my own from flake. Zinsser is ready to use straight from the can. I believe it's a 3lb cut. I've used it and thinner it but never considered it in terms of a " cut" when I did. A 3lb cut is 48 ounces of flake to 1 gallon of alcohol --a 1 1/2 lb cut is 24 ounces of flake to 1 gallon of alcohol. Sooooo how would you do this? A gallon of zinsser weighs what? Subtracting 48 ounces the difference is what the alcohol weighs. "A pint a pound the world around "may work for alcohol I'm not sure. This is hurting my head so you do the math but Basically once you figure it out you want to double up on zinssers alcohol content to achieve a 1 1/2 lb cut. Personally I would do a thinned coat ( feels right no math) on my first coat. The thinned out first coat is to pick up ( expose so you can deal with it) the crud that will inevitably be there no matter how well you cleaned....and then my subsequent coats would be neat straight from the can. I would probably do at least 3 coats of 3 lb shellac on a floor. 1 1/2 lb cut is pretty thin and would take alot of coats to build a durable finish.
   I've only used shellac on floors twice and that was 50 years ago. One was a colonial house in Society Hill in Philadelphia. The other was an old resort long abandoned public house log building in South Western Virginia . Put the finish down and the next day came in to find 10000 1/2" tall mounds of saw dust from the powderpost beetles that apparently didn't appreciate being sealed in like that! Or maybe it was a drunken frenzy from the alcohol. Cleaned up ok because the shellac dried so quickly. My own oak parquet floors I did with Bona.

3. 
   sjeff70 | Dec 30, 2024 05:59am | #3

   How often do you have to do it?

4. 
   Mister | Dec 30, 2024 05:04pm | #4

   Additional reasons to use, it extends the life of old floors because it doesn't require deep sanding to redo, and looks better than plasticky poly, and is not as fragile as it's currently portrayed to be.

   Thank you for the input, Pantolones. That is crazy about the bugs, it must have been shocking.

   There is a lot of disparity between all of the different cuts and amounts of them needed for a floor, that I've read online. Someone on this forum said they did four 1# coats, that held up well. I called Rust-Oleum wood finishes support, and the guy said to use two 1# coats for a floor. That seems way too little; makes me question the guy's depth of knowledge. I have done one floor before, using two 3# (straight Zinsser) coats. The result seemed thick enough, although I was not able to get long-term info.

   Every 1 1/2# cut coat would be equal to a little more than a half of a straight coat of Zinsser I think, so I thought 4 coats would be equal to 2+ coats of Straight Zinsser.

   I wanted to do the thinner coats, so that drying ahead of the client moving in would be quicker. To do the equivalent of three 3# coats, I guess I would need to do 5 or 6 coats of 1 1/2# cut. I have not worked out the math of exactly how much more than one half of the straight shellac, the 1 1/2# cut is, in regard to the proportion of 3/4 alc to 1 Zinsser. I have been going by the chart I'm attaching.

   
5. 
   Mister | Dec 30, 2024 09:26pm | #5

   Do they screen attachments on this forum? I posted a long reply earlier today with an attachment, but it hasn't appeared.

6. 
   elmaduro | Dec 30, 2024 11:57pm | #6

   I'd consider Osmo. The feel and finish is very similar to shellac with much less work and fuss.