On 2007-07-05 00:00:40 +0100, said:

Investigating options to redo the flooring in some of the house, I
came across what seem to be traditional style tongue and groove
floorboards - but made of spruce which I believe is a rather soft wood
for a flooring application.

See http://www.wickes.co.uk/invt/124419

Now on the package for these boards it specifically says not to use
this as a finished floor surface, but more for replacing existing
floorboards.

My question is - is there not a reasonable way to finish this sort of
wood so that it could be used as the finished flooring? It could
certainly look very nice and I don't mind trading effort to save some
money if that's what it would take. But is this a false economy
somehow?

Any ideas if this is a realistic prospect?

Thanks,
David

Wickes is not really a good source of timber. With the number of
banana shaped pieces they have, they would be better off being in the
greengrocery business.

One thing not to do with finish is to use anything that attempts to
make the wood what it is not. For example, oak stains and varnishes
on these kinds of softwood look dreadful because of the different rate
of absorbency.

Even the antique pine stains don't work that well and many stains and
varnishes just result in an unnatural orangey mess.

The most reasonable solution I've seen if you want to leave the boards
exposed is to use a satin or matt water based clear varnish - one of
the hard ones. Initially, this won't alter the colour very much at
all, but the wood will tend to gradually darken a little.

Waxing is another approach. I've used that on shelves etc. but not a
softwood floor. It works well on a hardwood floor.

To be honest, it isn't ideal at all.