How to cover oak furniture. Working with oak

Wooden flights of stairs durable and unique stylistically. The wood texture decorates the interior, makes it more natural, and adds tranquility. To emphasize it, use varnish coatings. There are many of them - with different properties, characteristics and prices. We invite you to find out which varnish to coat your oak staircase with.

You need to choose compounds that highlight the texture of the wood. They must be transparent. Options with oils in the composition look good. With their help, you can darken the material, making it more aristocratic. They are suitable for oak and other hardwoods.

Types of coatings for oak structures in home

All varnishes form a dense film on wood. Its characteristics may vary. It can be shiny, matte or glossy. Main question here – what you like best and fits the overall interior.

When choosing what varnish to coat an oak staircase, many focus on price. In fact, in approximately the same price range you can buy absolutely different coatings. Here are the main ones:

Alcohol. They dry very quickly - up to a couple of hours. Plus they are easy to polish. But they are very sensitive to moisture and cold. It is necessary to ensure stable temperature and humidity conditions in the room. Alcohol varnishes are used for flights and flights of stairs.
Nitrocellulose. They contain plasticizers, resins and solvents of different levels of volatility. More resistant to various kinds influences, but are not used so often indoors. Suitable for outdoor use.
Formaldehyde. Rightfully one of the most popular. They are often used in homes and are durable and long lasting. Formaldehyde resins in the composition provide excellent adhesion to wooden surface. The only drawback is strong smell. Over time, it disappears, but at first it is better not to inhale it, but to live outside the room with stairs.
Alkyd. They cover steps where the stairs are not used very actively. For example, at the dacha. Such varnishes tolerate mechanical loads well, but are not durable enough on their own. Can be used as a temporary solution.

Whether there is a general advice What is the best varnish to coat an oak staircase? Only one. Many craftsmen say that for steps you need to choose formaldehyde varnish or an analogue water based. It is better to avoid other types.

The above alkyd compositions can also be questioned. They penetrate deeply into the wood, but the top ball is very thin. As a result, with active use, after a few months it is partially erased. This option is suitable for oak furniture. But for stairs, it's better to consider an alternative.

Transparent and Opaque Finishes: what varnish is best to coat a wooden oak staircase

Oak has a beautiful natural texture. Hiding it behind a layer of paint is often wrong. Therefore, it is wiser to use a transparent coating. The composition completely covers the entire area of the wood, but does not hide the structure. On the contrary, it emphasizes it, makes it more contrasting and expressive. If there are minor defects on the surface, preliminary putty may be required. But such a need arises quite rarely.

The varnish application process is simple. The main thing is that the surface is dry and clean. The layer is applied evenly, you need to ensure that there are no drips. After drying, the design will become even more contrasting and will blend better with the interior.

Please note that oak darkens over time. This is not due to paint coatings, this breed just has such a property.

In what cases are opaque coatings used? Mainly if you need to hide obvious wood defects and imperfections in wood texture. In this case, such varnish is usually applied in several layers. Otherwise the structure will be visible. The old coating must first be completely cleaned, primer and putty must be applied. And only after that – varnishing.

If you do the varnishing yourself

Any varnishes are toxic. Some are more, others are less. But if you are varnishing a staircase in a residential building, make sure that no one is inside during the work. All work must be done in a special protective mask to avoid poisoning. If work is carried out in permanent place residence, choose the fastest drying compounds. Otherwise, you will have to temporarily move to a hotel or with relatives.

It is still better to entrust the work to the masters. This is how you get excellent result, the coating will be uniform, without streaks and untreated areas of wood. This is the only way to guarantee many years of service life of the entire structure.

Parquet made from oak is one of the most popular floor coverings, which has high aesthetic properties and performance characteristics that can be provided by solid, rot-resistant wood. Oak parquet carries all the basic qualities of the wood from which it is made: strength, strength, wear resistance, longevity. This is facilitated by the high content of tannins and the structure of oak, a feature of which is narrow pores.

Features of the material

Manufacturers of oak parquet have strict requirements for the conditions of harvesting and storage of wood.

The wood is of high quality and must be aged for at least 6 months.
Each tree must be cut according to an individual plan.
During six-month storage, wood must undergo a natural drying process at special sites under the strict supervision of specialists.
Wood received at the plant is evaporated in a drying chamber.
The material must be subjected to secondary drying, which completes the process of preparing the raw material, finally stabilizing the wood.

All requirements for the raw materials from which oak parquet is made make it resistant to changes in temperature and humidity, guarantee strength and durability, and increase wear resistance. Ready material goes through the stage of selective sorting and packaging in polyethylene or cardboard, which allows for preservation linear dimensions wood during transportation.

The quality and color of the wood directly depend on where the oak grows. A tree grown in a dry, sandy area will have a yellowish tint, a fine-grained texture, high hardness, and a low elasticity index. Oak, cut in the mountains, has large layers of wood that have a pale pink tint.

Methods of processing wood intended for parquet production

There are several ways to process wood, opening up opportunities for designers of all levels to huge opportunities using oak parquet to create interiors of different styles:

brushing;
aging;
heat treatment;
Tesk;
burning;
patination;
toning.

Oak lends itself well to staining or etching (standing in water for several years), the result of which is a uniform coloration in a silky, dark purple color, as well as an increase in the hardness of the wood and an increase in its fragility.

Whitening parquet

By the way, in Lately Parquet tinting is especially popular in White color. Many owners of parquet flooring are wondering how to whiten oak parquet flooring on their own. To do this you need to purchase special remedy(based on the production of bleach) or oil for bleaching wood. An important condition is grinding with a single-disc polishing machine.

Old oak parquet needs to be scraped. Remove debris and dust from the floor. Apply a product with a whitening effect to the parquet as indicated in the instructions (usually for 10 hours). Then scrub the floor again, removing excess bleach. All defects should be repaired with a putty compound purchased or made from PVA and wood dust. After the putty has dried, the floor is sanded and varnished.

Cutting methods

If you need to buy parquet for floors that bear heavy loads, then you should pay attention to the thickness of the annual rings: the larger it is, the higher the wear resistance of the material.

Cutting wood used to make parquet may have:

tangential wave pattern;
radial pattern: longitudinal straight lines.

The cutting method determines the quality characteristics of the material.

For example, radial cutting is more resistant to deformation and moisture. It is also more wear-resistant than tangential sawing.

Main characteristics of oak block parquet

Pieced oak parquet is planks equipped with grooves and ridges on the edges, which, when laid, are inserted into one another, creating a feeling of integrity of the covering.

There are several selective types of oak flooring.

Piece parquet, made of natural oak, has a pronounced natural pattern and is not selected by cutting. The radius of knots on quality material should not exceed 1.5 mm. sapwood – 10%.
Rustic is also not selected by cutting, and has a color that varies from plank to plank. The radius of the knots does not exceed 3 mm.
The standard is planks sawn tangentially, with an even color (with insignificant differences) and a rich texture. The presence of knots and sapwood is completely excluded.
The natural radial type of parquet is sawn using the radial method, which gives the planks a uniform texture and color. Sapwood is completely excluded. There may be a slight slope of the fibers and the presence of knots, the diameter of which does not exceed 1 mm.
Radial – parquet with radial cut, having an even texture with a lively pattern. The presence of sapwood, knots, and inclined fibers is completely eliminated.
Select radial is also a material with a radial cut, the most even texture. Absent: grain slope, sapwood, knots, pith rays.

Mechanical damage is excluded in all types of selection, which has a direct impact on the cost of parquet: high quality material, causes its high cost.

Cost of oak covering

When choosing parquet, you should pay attention to the following aspects:

wood quality;
texture;
color;
presence of knots;
proportionality.

The cost of solid oak parquet differs significantly from the price piece material, the rate of which ranges from 400 to 3,500 rubles per square meter.

The main advantage of oak parquet is its ability to allow different kinds processing, which allows laying the coating in the interiors of the most various styles and directions.

Oak is a very popular material that is widely used:

Construction.
Finishing work.
Making furniture.
Making art objects and souvenirs.

Naturally, not only freshly felled and sawn wood is used, but processed and high-quality dried material. This required condition to avoid future cracking, changing the shape and size of the product. Oak, which is used in construction or furniture making, must have certain physical and mechanical properties.

Therefore, when the sawing is completed, the question arises: “ How to dry oak correctly" We will answer this in this article.

Features of oak wood: what should happen as a result of drying

Oak lumber is quite capricious; it is difficult to dry naturally. It is not enough to simply leave the stack under a canopy or in the open sun so that through certain time get the required result.

Before how to dry oak boards, you need to understand the features of the material:

Oak wood is susceptible to drying. This means that when the moisture level drops below a critical level, internal and external cracks can form.
The most difficult thing to dry is freshly sawn oak, whose humidity exceeds 25%.
Temperatures above 55 degrees are not allowed initial stages drying. This leads to the collapse of wood capillaries, that is, to the appearance of multiple internal cracks.
It is not recommended to send freshly sawn material with a humidity above 40% for drying.
Proper drying of oak requires maintaining a certain level of temperature and humidity.

Features of drying oak wood are such that to obtain quality material without defects with a certain percentage of humidity, it is necessary to draw up a preliminary plan for this procedure and use special means.
There are several tasks for drying oak:

Shrinkage with prevention of changes in linear dimensions. Here the humidity is reduced to 30%.
Drying to transport humidity of 20-22%.
Full volume drying for immediate use. The humidity level should be 6-12%.

Methods of drying oak: chamber and chamberless methods

From all of the above, it is obvious that obtaining wood from a freshly felled oak that meets all the necessary parameters is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process.

There are many ways to reduce the moisture content of boards, logs and beams, but they can all be divided into two large categories:

Tubeless (atmospheric) drying.
Chamber drying.

Atmospheric drying is ideally the most affordable and in a natural way reducing humidity levels. The technique has been used in sawmills and wood processing industries for centuries. It is believed that naturally dried wood is of the highest quality and can be used for decades without changing its original qualities. But the method has one significant drawback - it takes a long time.

Because modern life very dynamic, buyers are interested in purchasing material as quickly as possible. Logging enterprises, in turn, prefer to sell wood as quickly as possible. Therefore, in the 19th-20th centuries, many techniques were invented using electrical energy. Chamber drying is carried out in convective chambers; condensation and vacuum drying are also used.

All work is carried out in industrial conditions, as a rule, are divided into the following stages:

Warm up
Direct drying.
Cooling, obtaining a given humidity threshold.

Chamber drying is similar to multi-accelerated atmospheric drying; the desired result is achieved many times faster. But the disadvantage is the high cost of the procedure. Required use expensive equipment, most often this is only possible in industrial conditions.

Fortunately, not so long ago infrared dryers appeared, which make it possible to reduce the time required for atmospheric drying and obtain the desired result in a time comparable to chamber processing. At the same time, all Features of drying oak wood, the material does not experience aggressive influences that destroy the structure. At the end of the process, the humidity reaches the required level.

Infrared drying of oak: advantages of the modern method

Proper drying of oak has now become possible even at home. Infrared dryers manufactured under the FlexiHIT brand have a cassette form factor, are easily located inside stacks, and can also be used for drying small pieces of material. IN in this case The volume of wood does not matter, it is enough to use required amount dryers and position them correctly. The result is achieved in 3-7 days.

The properties of infrared-dried oak correspond to the properties of wood dried by the atmospheric method:

The material has a specified moisture content.
The fibers do not warp, cracks and stressed areas do not form.
The appearance matches that of naturally dried oak.

It is noteworthy that anyone can use IR dryers; you do not need to have special skills to get results. The equipment operates on normal electrical network, while consuming very little. Drying one cubic meter of wood requires no more than 200-400 kW.

To check the humidity, it is enough to use a moisture meter; when the required value is reached, the infrared dryers turn off. The oak can be used for its intended purpose immediately.

Oak wood is quite capricious when dried, so to get the optimal result in the shortest possible time, it is better to prefer tubeless drying in combination with IR dryers.

Wood remains the most desirable and attractive for buyers furniture material. Cabinets, tables, chairs, chests of drawers from natural wood very environmentally friendly; they look beautiful and respectable.

Oak – wood No. 1

Wood suitable for making furniture is usually divided into “simple” and “valuable”. The first includes pine, birch, aspen, linden; the second - ash, maple, cherry, acacia, walnut, oak, beech. In Russia and Europe, oak has remained the leader among the types of wood used in interiors for many centuries in a row. The reason for this is its high hardness, beautiful drawing texture and availability of oak compared to other valuable and exotic species. This is why oak is most often copied in other materials (chipboard, film facades), and for the same reason, the majority of solid wood furniture in the premium segment are oak products. Companies offering luxury custom furniture also often use this wood.

But if you order facades, countertops, tables, chairs or an entire furniture set made of oak, the question arises of how to protect it from harmful effects environment and extend its service life.

Ways to protect wooden furniture

To make wood furniture last longer, the paint and varnish industry offers big choice products: various paints, varnishes, stains; antiseptics, oils.

Stains can be colorless or tinted; varnishes – also colored and with varying degrees of matte. And paints for wood amaze with their diversity: they differ not only in color, but also in the degree of coverage and texture.

With what ? The choice depends on your final task. If you want to create a smooth, monochromatic surface (relevant for Art Nouveau interiors), then it is better to choose enamel on alkyd based or other paints with a dense texture (polyurethane, acrylic). Typically, this finishing method is chosen for “simple” wood.

Oak has a beautiful structure and rich shades, so it is used for painting clear varnishes, stains, impregnations. They can be either transparent or tinted - in the second case, painted oak a noble shade appears.

All methods of painting wood help protect it from harmful factors that affect furniture during use:

Moisture
Changes in humidity
Temperature changes
Ultra-violet rays

In addition, painting and tinting help to fit the furniture into the surrounding interior and make the decor of the room more harmonious.

Painted oak in the interior

From oak wood coated with tinted varnish or stain, the most various items home and office furnishings. But most often it is used in furniture. Oak facades, as well as furniture bodies, look elegant and respectable. They go well with the natural range of finishes, traditional for classics, and with other wooden furniture.

In art deco, country, and Provence interiors, oak is also appropriate. Retro forms would be appropriate here (facades with panels, figured cornices, carvings), and it is better to tint the paint in one of the dark shades.

IN modern furniture oak facades will add a fashionable “eco-friendly” touch, and their rich range of shades will combine perfectly with many solid colors.

We know everything about wood!

Meb Estet company specialists have great experience working with solid wood. We will create for you individual pieces of furniture or an entire set that will look harmonious in your home. We also work with valuable wood species, including solid oak.

Impregnation of wood is a necessary operation that extends their service life. It should be carried out even if oak and other species are processed appropriately for sale (for example, according to the indicator relative humidity). Reason – unfavourable conditions operation of the floorboard: high operating loads, and frequently changing surface moisture of the wood.

Possible methods of surface impregnation of wood

Impregnation at home oak boards can be done:

special parquet varnishes;
compositions based on oil-wax mixtures;
refreshing blends that restore shine wooden covering.

The last option relates more to maintaining appearance already processed oak board, so this impregnation is not deep. Rather, this technology is reminiscent of cleaning a wooden floor, and therefore can be done once a week, or even more often.

Surface wood fresheners - polishes - also have a similar effect. High-quality polishes can temporarily restore the original color of wood and emphasize its texture.

Such technologies are used a month or two after the final installation of the parquet board.

Unlike the above methods, impregnation is carried out at the stage of laying the coating or immediately after that. It assumes:

Impregnation using parquet varnishes

All compounds in this group, without exception, are extremely toxic, which must be taken into account when choosing this method of impregnating wood. Treatment should be carried out in well-ventilated areas, at air temperatures up to 25°C (at more high temperatures varnishes begin to evaporate even more intensely), as well as using personal protective equipment: safety glasses and a gauze bandage (or a respirator).

The toxicity of board impregnation varnishes depends on the type of solvent. Varnishes are made on a water basis and on the basis of synthetic solvents. Water-based varnishes much less toxic, although they dry somewhat slower. However, in this case, this is not a disadvantage, but rather an advantage of the composition: quick-drying impregnating varnishes are very demanding on the quality of their application, and with insufficient experience of the performer, they leave behind clearly defined streaks. They can only be eliminated by re-varnishing the wood, and this leads to increased consumption of varnish and prolongation of work.

A clear advantage of parquet varnishes is their durability. Oak treated with such compounds will subsequently require only cosmetic maintenance of cleanliness and texture, which can be achieved by applying polish of the required color to the surface of the floorboard. Sometimes stains are successfully used to maintain the external texture of oak coverings.

Impregnation using oil-wax compounds

This impregnation technology is much “cleaner” from an environmental point of view, since it uses non-toxic components of natural origin.

Oil-wax mixtures are used not only for impregnation, but also for restoration of damaged areas of the board. Advantages of this impregnation method:

Giving the coating antistatic characteristics. Due to processing oil compositions the risk of static electricity accumulation on the surface of oak parquet boards is reduced. When treated with varnishes, the antistatic effect does not occur, which is explained by polarization organic solvent during the process of applying it to the surface of the wood.
The oil-wax surface is warmer to the touch, which is explained by the increased heat capacity of the impregnation components. Therefore, the treated rooms will be warmer in winter.
The relatively low volatility of the oil allows it to penetrate into the internal structure of the oak board to a considerable depth. As a result, wood porosity decreases and density increases.
The presence of wax gives the impregnating composition the ability to cover minor surface defects in wood that can arise, for example, from the claws of pets.
Wax itself is a water-repellent composition, so the board will not suffer from excess moisture, for example, when washing floors.
Wax-oil impregnations can be used to treat any room in the house. Most often they process boards made of oak, ash, and larch.

Technology of work execution

Wood impregnation parquet varnish carried out in two layers. The subsequent one is superimposed in a direction perpendicular to the previous one. Due to the rapid setting of the composition, it is recommended to carry out the treatment with a hard, wide brush.

There are much more subtleties in applying an impregnating composition based on oil-wax components. The difficulty stems from the fact that the working mixture for impregnation contains several dissimilar components.

This includes the oil itself, wax, resinous substances that give finished surface shine and reduce its porosity, as well as a very small amount of chemical stabilizers, providing impregnation with resistance to changing conditions of temperature and relative humidity.

The quality of processing is determined by the characteristics of the oil. It is divided into three types:

High density, with a high percentage of resins. Impregnation of boards using this oil is considered the most durable.
Regular density, to which various dyes are often added - from light brown to lemon yellow. This makes it easier to select an impregnating composition to match the texture and color of the board (for oak, dark-colored compositions are used).
Whitening oils, with the help of which the color of the finishing surface becomes lighter. More often they are used to process light wood species (linden, pine, maple), but sometimes bleaching oak increases the expressiveness of the floorboard.

Before impregnation, the necessary preparatory work: The oak board is sanded and surface putty is applied to repair minor defects. Then the impregnation itself is carried out in several layers with a break for drying. It can be produced cold or hot.

Impregnation with oil-wax mixtures also has a number of limitations:

As a result of the treatment, the coefficient of friction between the surfaces of shoes and the floor is reduced, so it is easier to slip on such a board.
If subsequent impregnation with varnish is desired, the entire coating will have to be removed.
The method is not suitable if the premises are equipped with a “warm floor” system.

The choice of the optimal method for processing boards, including those made from oak, depends on the conditions of its use and the desired visual effect from the finished coating.