Pre-finished Douglas Fir Flooring Tung Oil Finish
Posted: December 2, 2011
We are very excited about our new Douglas Fir pre-finished Natural Living Series. Our Natural Living series features a Tung Oil Floor Finish specifically formulated and designed for our Douglas Fir flooring. Finishing floors with Tung oil will provide years of enjoyment with very little maintenance for your busy lifestyle.
Our Natural Living Series is handcrafted from Montana Douglas Fir that has been hand-rubbed, hand-sanded, and pre-finished with our proprietary Montana Tung Oil Floor Finish. Tung Oil is a penetrating, natural oil that comes from Aleurites Montana or Tung Tree seeds. Our Tung Oil Floor Finish naturally penetrates wood fibers and becomes a hard permanent finish when dry. Ordinary finishes are difficult to repair, but our Natural Living Series is easily repaired by simply rubbing a dab of our Tung Oil Finish into the desired area; no sanding or stripping is necessary. Natural Living Series is designed around our busy lifestyles and is one of the only true low-maintenance wood flooring available. Our Tung Oil floor finish protects from within, it will not crack, chip or peel.
Natural Living Series is produced from Montana Douglas Fir and available in our Natural or Antique finish. We offer two pre-finished flooring textures; skip planed circle sawn and raised grain. Our textured Tung oil floors are a unique way to age flooring which will simply get better as time goes on.
The first record of Tung Oil appears in the writings of Confucius from approx 400 B.C. The Chinese recognized the amazing qualities of Tung Oil and throughout their history used Tung Oil to waterproof boats, finish furniture for royal families, and even seal the great wall of China.
Pure Tung Oil is a finishing product that provides a tough, flexible, and highly water-resistant coating. Tung Oil was readily used in China centuries ago in the building industry as a treatment for both stone and wooden structures; most commonly in the marine trade as a preservative and water repellant on wooden boats. Pure Tung Oil is water and alkali-resistant. It resists marring, penetrates wood fibers, and is elastic and resistant to checking. Tung Oil for floors builds quickly, consolidates the wood surface, and builds a transparent matte finish.
Fun Facts about Tung Oil:
- Marco Polo is said to have brought a sample back to the Western world from China
- Completely natural and renewable, pure Tung Oil has gained recent popularity among environmentally conscious consumers
- Inherently resistant to disease and insects, Tung trees require no fungicides or pesticides
- Tung nut by-products can be used for mulch or burned for fuel
- Tung oil has been used extensively in the paint and varnish industry
- In the 30s, Tung oil compounds were used to coat cables, telephone wires, generators, fans, and various other types of electrical equipment
- Historically the automobile industry used large quantities of Tung oil. For instance, every brake band manufactured used it as a binding agent to hold them together
- At one time more than 2 million pounds of Tung oil were used annually to manufacture cosmetic tubes
- During the war of 1914 Tung oil was used extensively in the treatment of airplane fabrics as a water-resistant varnish
- The Chinese have used Tung oil for waterproofing masonry, cloth, shoes, clothing, and paper
- Tung oil has been used for centuries in China to seal concrete
- Tung oil mixed with lime mortar or burned Tung nut residue was one of the world’s first agents of waterproof caulking for boats
- Tung oil is used by stonemasons on granite and marble to permanently seal stone surfaces and prevent staining
- A light coat of Tung oil rubbed onto steel is a very effective rust inhibitor
- The shells of Tung nuts yield valuable raw material for the manufacturing of insecticides
- Tung oil is used in the printing of the U.S. Paper Currency
- Tung oil was reportedly mixed in the mortar used to build the Great Wall of China
- Tung oil is low maintenance, it never needs to be stripped or sanded; simply hand rub our Tung oil finish using a cotton rag into the desired area like scratches, dents, and dings.
Our Douglas Fir wood floors finished with Tung Oil will continue to gain character over time. Every scratch, ding, and dent is a memory that will last a lifetime.
