Lynne,

Thanks for sharing. It is a funny story! But I'm thinking you weren't appropriately dressed for the discussion. If you'd be wearing Dickies sliding off your hips with set in grime and a few bleach spots, a once-red Metallica T-shirt worn to a drapy softness, well oiled work boots, and a folded OSHA orange bandanna tied around your forehead as a sweatband, they might have said, "Oh, we never heard of that! What a great idea!"

Wow! They were certainly bent on not letting you 'make a mistake!" That's good, I guess, but it would be better if, added to their conscientious customer service, they knew of the possible uses of the great product they sell.

Lynne, that is too funny. That was close to my exact experience in an Ace Hardware trying to buy Cabinet Coat. It took them 30 minutes to figure out how to mix one of CC's own colors. My mistake was going back a few days later to get another color. That time took me 20 minutes. I still didn't have the color I was looking for, so I gave up after that and went to Sherwin Williams.

I am going to be picking up some Waterlox pretty soon, so I guess I should prepare myself *just in case*.

That's as bad as my going into the appliance dept of a large store and making the salesman pull out the spec book so I could prove to him in black and white what power sharing was on an induction cooktop.

And I've been to five different flooring stores this week where I asked to see what they considered their best laminate. "Oh laminate's laminate," they all essentially said. Urggh! I couldn't resist... "So how come some is $2/sq. foot and some is $10?" That perplexed 'em! Finally found a fellow in one store who told me all about the plank lock technology in one line, and how another company bought this line just for the patent... and how all laminate companies have to submerge a piece of laminate for x minutes and not show more than 15% swelling, but this one company only has 6% swelling etc. etc. Finally a salesperson who knows their product!!!! Then I went to an electrical supply store this morning thinking I would surely get better info than from HD. Undercabinet lighting? Oh sure, all kinds! 'long as it's flourescent!

I have had a similar problem with Waterlox for my floor. Every floor guy in town is dead set on polyurethane for my floor - when I tell them I'm going to Waterlox it, they freak out. Oh, you'd never want to that! You want to poly it. Etc, etc. In fact, they refuse to even talk about refinishing my floor unless I'll let them poly it.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to refinish them myself, because I just don't want the darn things poly'ed!

What is up with people and Waterlox?

>What is up with people and Waterlox?

They never heard of it, so it has to be inferior. Just ask any of my neighbors about cooking with induction. :)

Funny happens here too.

When I first started using waterlox (about 5 years ago) and started mentioning it on this forum, i got some interesting responses. 'Why not use water based poly?', 'why would you use an oil finish?' 'Why not get prefinished floors?'

I guess one has to see the waterlox finish to see the difference.

(now, i have to see how induction works) :)

My cousin's DH (who is a carpenter) used Waterlox on the original (well, original to the upstairs, we don't know when that was built since the 1743 house was probably just 1 room) pine floors in their house. They are gorgeous! They'd been covered with carpet for as long as I remember (my great-uncle and DW lived there), but cousin said they looked the same as the old dirty wavy pine boards in the original one room downstairs (with square-head hand cut nails), I couldn't believe it!

I'm thinking of Waterloxing my oak stair treads that I had originally used BLO and beeswax on, if I can find a time to do it when I can keep kids out of the house (and DH and I can sleep on sleeper sofa) for a few days.

Having a really old house & buying things for their UNintended purposes, I've learned that when asked at a hardware store about what you're using the 'thing' for, the answer is "an art project". The salesmen don't try to talk you out of it & they can actually be helpful at suggesting alternatives - just never tell them what you're actually planning. It's okay to be weird if you're an artist!

I love that, antiquesilver! I will definitely tell them its for an art project!

antiquesilver, that's perfect, and wise.

I can't even tell you how much of this I ran into when I was making my copper countertops. Try explaining to the plumbing guy at the hardware store that you're buying underwater copper pipe putty to smooth out any gaps in the mitered edges of your side trim... (!)

The guy at the copper suppliers didn't even want to order barstock for me because he was sure my project wouldn't work. I had to plead with him for about 5 minutes (there aren't many other places to order copper from in my area, and the shipping would have been exorbitant anywhere else). He finally snapped "well, it's YOUR funeral" and placed my order. Argh!

I keep meaning to email that joker a photo of my gorgeous finished copper counters. :-)

Isn't waterlox basically a tung oil and poly mixture?

Well, I never expected validation when I started reading the end of this thread. :) Thanks, Antiquesilver! (It's okay to be weird because I'm an artist...)

I got really curious this morning and Googled Waterlox. It's been around almost 100 years and the first things it says it's that it's tung oil based and food safe after it's cured (30 days). So I'm really baffled by these guys who argued with Lynne, and still think it's the costume. :-)

In general products sold for wood finishing fall into a category called "generally accepted as safe". That is, they are not FDA regulated and have not been tested to FDA regulations, but there is no evidence that fully cured wood finishes have ever caused any harm to anyone. Hence manufacturers can claim "food safe".

ChiefNeil:

Waterlox is very similar to oil based polyurethane. The difference is that it uses phenolic instead of urethane resins and tung oil istead of the lighter colored oils found in most oil-based polyurethane.

In general Waterlox is less durable than oil-based urethane but is much easier to repair. It also has less of a plastic look to it and in fact is a very attractive finish with its deep amber color. I don't like it on lighter woods but otherwise it looks great.

It is considered safe for incidental food contact (meaning no chopping) but the government requires that for basically all finishes, not just those for woodworking.

I would have loved to finish our floors with Waterlox but since it will not be allowed under 2011 governmental VOC regulations I went with a catalyzed waterborne -- Bonakemi Traffic.

Oh, Waterloxing the oak stair treads is a good idea! They will be refinishing my stairs in my kitchen, and they get super heavy duty use.