Putty of wooden floors, its need, preparation of compositions, features of working with the material and the technology of its application. Wood floor putty is an intermediate stage of its finishing, which solves problems aimed at improving the surface quality and improving the performance of the coating. It can be performed both when installing a new flooring, and when restoring an old one. You will learn how to putty wooden floors, if you are not too lazy to read this article to the end.
The need to putty wood floor
During the installation and operation of a wooden floor, various defects often appear on its surface in the form of cracks of different widths, cracks, chips and irregularities. To make these flaws invisible before painting, the coating is putty. In addition to improving the appearance of the floor, it also performs another function, which will be discussed below.
It is no secret that the main enemy of a wooden floor is excess moisture, which can penetrate through its cracks and accumulate under floorboards or parquet, creating an environment favorable for the development of spores of fungus and mold. Those, in turn, are able not only to disrupt the comfortable microclimate of the room, causing various ailments in its inhabitants, but also to turn a strong floor into a pile of rotten boards in a short time. However, there is a way to avoid all this.
If the gaps in the wood flooring are small, they can be easily repaired with wood putty. This procedure will close off water access to the subfloor and protect the wood from the flooring. The putty will not cope with large gaps: when sealing, it can simply fall down between the boards. In these cases, a special twine is used, impregnated with glue, with which wide gaps are caulked, and then a repair mixture is applied on top.
Thus, with the help of floor putty, you can get not only a smooth, but also an airtight wooden coating.
Features of the preparation of wood putty
When choosing a material suitable for work, there are two ways: buy a ready-made mixture in the store, or make a putty yourself for your wooden floor.
Factory putties are quite affordable. They differ in their chemical composition, which determines their properties and field of application. There are four main types of such mixtures: oil, polymer, acrylic and solvent-based putties. The manufacturers of these fillers provide detailed instructions for use with their products. Therefore, we will consider the latter option in more detail.
To make your own wood putty, there are several ways:
- You will need wood dust or fine sawdust as filler for the putty. Its fraction depends on the width of the floor slits. All this can be collected with a broom from the coating after it has been sanded. After that, the filler must be combined with drying oil or oil varnish and mix well until a thick mixture is obtained. If these binders are not credible, traditional PVA or wood glue can be used instead.
- Putty can be made from a piece of old linoleum. The only condition is that it must be solid, not flaky. The material must be cut into small fragments and filled with acetone. After a while, the linoleum will dissolve and you get a mixture that perfectly protects the wood from moisture penetration.
- A good putty can be prepared using drying oil and animal glue - bone or flesh. For 500 g of drying oil, you need to take 100 g of ten percent glue, 125 g of varnish kerosene or turpentine and 25 g of liquid desiccant. In addition, you will need sifted dry chalk and liquid soap. First you need to warm up the glue, add soap to it and keep this mixture, stirring constantly, over the fire. In the process of cooking, turpentine, drying oil and desiccant should be gradually introduced into it, chalk is added last. The resulting composition should be mixed well to the desired density, and in the process of working with it, keep the putty in a warm state, using, for example, a basin with hot water.
- Oil putty, similar to the store-bought mixture for puttying wooden floors, can be obtained at an order of magnitude cheaper. To prepare it, you need to grind 30 g of pumice, and then combine it with 60 g of turpentine and 280 g of linseed oil. Then 17 g of ammonia (18%), 19 g of gelatin, 12 g of borax, 19 g of casein and about 0.3 liters of water should be added to this mixture. The resulting composition must be constantly mixed and cooked in a water bath, gradually bringing its temperature to 90 degrees. When the mixture thickens to a pasty state, the heating should be stopped and the finished putty should be allowed to cool down. The composition must be consumed all at once, later it loses its original properties.
- At home, you can even make a water-based resin putty, similar to the acrylic factory mix, only cheaper. To make it, 200 g of rosin and 400 g of ozokerite must be poured into a deep container. All this will need to be melted and added to 400 g of yellow ocher. The resulting mixture should be mixed to a pasty state, and then hot applied to a wooden surface with a metal spatula. The cooled and hardened composition can always be reheated and applied again.
It should be noted that often homemade wood putty is not inferior in quality to factory counterparts. Therefore, its manufacture at home remains relevant to this day.
Instructions for applying putty on a wooden floor
Before you level the wooden floor with a putty for laminate, linoleum, varnish, or just seal the cracks in it, you need to prepare the necessary set of tools. It should include: metal and rubber spatulas for starting and finishing, a paint brush and roller, a container and a drill with a mixer for stirring the putty and an abrasive material for grouting the surface. After that, you can proceed to the step-by-step conduct of work.
Preparing a wooden floor for putty
First, the wooden floor must be freed from foreign objects and debris removed from it. Then the surface should be cleaned from the old coating using any mechanical and chemical means. Staples, nails and various metal parts protruding from the floor must be protected from rust with enamel. Debris left after cleaning is removed with a brush and fine dust with a damp sponge.
To increase the adhesion of the floor wood with the putty mixture, you should prime the floor surface. The primer must be highly penetrating and compatible with the selected filler. For oil-based plastic mixtures, a varnish-based primer must be used, for solvent-based putties, nitro primers are used.
When puttingty a wooden floor with your own hands, you should take into account some of the nuances of this work:
- Most wood putties lose their elasticity at subzero temperatures. Therefore, in winter, you should refrain from repairing coatings located in the open air.
- The moisture content of the wood floor before it should be putty should be below 12%. If it is higher, the room must be dried before work.
- When filling cracks in the floor, the layer of putty should rise slightly above its surface, since during the polymerization process, the repair mixture shrinks somewhat.
- The permissible width and depth of the slots in the coating for embedding with the mixture should not exceed 10 mm. In other cases, their preliminary caulking is performed.
Sealing gaps and cracks in wooden floors
This is the first stage of floor treatment, the purpose of which is to eliminate large gaps and cracks in the flooring. For this work, you will need a serpyanka tape. Its use will allow you to avoid excessive consumption of putty and prevent further development of cracks.
A seam or gap in the floor must be treated with a putty and tape applied on top of it. Seal large cracks and gaps with twine. To do this, you need to pick up a rope of the required thickness, saturate it with liquid wood glue and put it in the slot. You can compact the twine in the cavity using a chisel. After a day, when the glue is dry, you can putty.
With a small spatula, the mixture must be taken from the container, put on a large spatula, and then distribute the solution over the problem area of the floor with diagonal movements. The thickness of the applied layer should not exceed 3 mm.
For the finishing putty, the mixture must be made more liquid. This consistency will allow you to apply it in a thin and even layer of 1.5 mm. After the putty has dried, the coating must be cleaned with an emery cloth. When using a solvent-based mixture, the abrasive should be soaked in turpentine before use.
To add color to the repaired area in the tone of the coating, the appropriate pigments are added to the solution when it is mixed. This is especially true when putting varnish on wooden floors.
Solid wood floor leveling
The need for this process can be determined using a two-meter rule equipped with bubble levels. In this case, the floor surface is checked for "clearance". To do this, you first need to simply apply the rule horizontally to the floor. If there is a gap of more than 2 mm between the planes of the tool and the floor, such a surface must be leveled with a putty. There should be several such measurements in different areas of the coverage.
However, when the rule hits the convex part of the floor, the determination of its curvature can be difficult due to the fact that the instrument is always unstable in this area. There is a way out of this situation: at both ends of the rule, you need to put on small bars of the same thickness, which, due to their area of contact with the floor, will in any case provide a gap. In this case, when measuring it, you need to subtract the thickness of the bars from the obtained value.
If the wood floor is curved, an unusual and innovative method can be used to level it. In this case, a putty is used, consisting of PVA glue and sawdust, which, after drying, becomes very durable and even difficult to process. Due to the low cost and availability of raw materials, such a composition also becomes economically viable. In fact, the hardened putty strongly resembles a chipboard plate with the only difference that it is impossible to make a whole product plastic and fill the unevenness of the floor with it.
The use of a mixture based on PVA glue allows you to putty a wooden floor under linoleum. Technologically, the process looks like this:
- The floor must be cleaned of the old coating and its creaking and sagging boards, if any, must be fixed to the logs with screws.
- Then, wooden slats should be stuffed onto the floorboards with a step of 35-50 cm, which will serve as beacons in the process of leveling the coating with putty. It is important to place them in the same horizontal plane to obtain a flat surface in the future. This is done using a building level.
- To prepare the putty, you need to slightly wet and squeeze out the sawdust, and then connect them with glue. The resulting mass must be kneaded to a thick consistency.
- Using a spatula, you need to fill in the areas between the slats, performing several layers intermittently. This is an important condition, since when dry, such a putty gives some shrinkage.
- After applying the last layer of the mixture, the floor plane should be aligned with the slats according to the rule. If necessary, putties can be added to lowered areas.
After two days, the mixture will harden, and linoleum can be laid on it. If a heavier decor, tiles, for example, is planned, then an intermediate layer of plywood, chipboard or gypsum board will be required to strengthen the floor surface.
How to putty a wooden floor - watch the video:
As a conclusion, it can be noted that for the correct putty of a wooden floor, the main conditions are the optimal choice of material and adherence to the technology of working with it. If you add patience and accuracy to this, success in this matter will be guaranteed.
