Putting finishing touches on a dance floor

October 27, 2005

Vishal has been making quite a bit of effort to improve dance floor at Club Salsa. He guesses he must have spent about 10 hours sanding the floor, putting on varnish, etc. thus far. For now though, the floor is still a work-in-progress. It also led to me to do a brief research on how to make (or more precisely putting finishing touches to) a dance floor. At one point last night, I wondered whether any kind of finish improves dance floor at all. But further treatment (varnish, etc) probably is a very good idea that would help keep floor reliable, consistent and durable if applied and maintained well. For example, gym floors are great for dancing, and gym floors most definitely have some sort of finish (probably some sort of varnish). Below is what I found.

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Following is an excerpt from Understanding the Basics of Wood Floor Finishes.

Wood floor finishes fall into two categories: surface finishes and penetrating finishes. Surface finishes are layers of finish film sitting on the surface of the wood flooring. Penetrating finishes are finishes that are absorbed into the surface of the wood flooring, and are also referred to as penetrating sealers. [Note: The impression I got from my readings was that penetrating finishes are commonly used for dance floors.]

The finish material is always applied to a prepared surface which has been sanded and/or scraped. Sanding is the technique used with nearly all floors. Scraping is performed only by a few specialists. The sanding processes can have a significant influence on how the finish performs.

All the surface finishes require at least a three-coat application. The first coat is a sealing coat. This coat can be either a penetrating sealer or in some cases the top coat finish itself. When penetrating finish is as a sealer, it must be absolutely dry before application of the top coats. This applies particularly where water-based finishes are applied. Most of these finishes also require some type of abrasion between coats for a proper mechanical bond between coats. After the sealer is applied, two additional coats are required for the three-coat system. When an additional coat is desired or requested, the preferred addition is an extra seal coat. Each layer/application of finish must be dry before the next is applied. Another very important issue is ventilation. The volatile materials must be allowed to evaporate for finishes to properly dry and cure. As drying occurs, it is a must that the air laden with the evaporatives be exhausted from the space between each coating application or performance will be an issue. Some of the issues caused by poor ventilation are soft finish, rough finish, peeling finish, etc.

To recap, always read and follow the manufacturer's instructions; finish systems on properly sanded flooring require a minimum of three coats; become familiar and practiced with the finish you use; be sure to ventilate after application; use only materials recommended for the system used; and don't mix different manufacturers' products.

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Other potentially useful websites I found include the following -

Sadolin Advice on Floor Care for Applying Varnishes

Webseal Varnish

Waterlox for Wood Floors

[Note: This website were found using Google.com using keywords such as, "dance floor varnish" and "wood floor varnish"]

Finally my condolences and best wishes go to Vishal for stupendous amount of work still left for him.