Finishing Apitong floors in Shipping Container Homes
shelterkraft
| Posted in Finishing on
I am building small cottages and houses out of reused shipping containers. These containers come with beautiful distressed Apitong plywood floors and I am trying to find a low VOC product for staining and finishing them. Because of this wood’s density and resinous nature, I haven’t found any water based stains that I’m happy with in terms of finish quality and durability. The typical mineral oil based stains that do work are emitting too much VOC’s. (I need to air out my model house for about 15 minutes before I show it to get the smell out of the air). I’m wondering if I should be looking at marine interior teak or mahogany finishes? Any ideas? ~ShelterKraft Werks
Replies
Apitong ?
Never worked with Apitong but for floors I have used Dura Seal Quick Coat as a stain and Bona Novia water based finish coat.
A little smell with the Dura Seal but not strong and doesn't last - The above combo worked well for me.
SA
Have you used these products on tropical hardwoods?
I haven't used such finishes on tropical hardwoods and don't know the particular one you mention. But, I think a fairly easy solution would be available. I'd coat the wood with 2 lb. cut dewaxed shellac--if you can be sure of finding a fresh can, Seal Coat by Zinsser would work, otherwise mix from flakes--blonde shellac won't give dramatic color change. Shellac will adhere just fine to the tropical hardwood. Then you can use the waterborne finishes, which in turn will adhere quite well to the shellac. If you mix shellac from flakes you can get the dewaxed shellacs in somewhat darker tints, which might be just the ticket to avoid a seperate stain operation. The shellac dries quite quickly. With adequate ventilation during application, it would be ready for top coating in just a few hours to be really really conservative. More likely it would be ready to be top coated in about 45 minutes.
Thanks Steve, I'll give it a try on some scrap wood.
Tropical woods
Never used that combo on tropical woods but as steve mentions - seal first to be safe. Maybe you can even wash the raw wood with alcohol to clean the surface of resin a bit before sealing. My Lincoln book on world woods also calls this wood Keruing and states there is resin trouble to work with it and finish as well
SA
Thanks SA, the alcohol is a good idea as it will clean the wood, lift up some of the resin and open up the grain a bit so that shelac will adhere better.
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