How do you know the floor cant be sanded? If the floor currently has Varnish. Then youre best bet is to use varnish again. Color is something to think about. Waterlox wont help you with color. Mixing some stain will get the color. But for prtection unless you remove the old varnish adding a coat of varnish is what i would do.

I have Lauzon engineered wood flooring and the finish is very durable!! I have red oak natural and not the American cherry that you are looking at. We don't have any dogs, but we get plenty of foot traffic including pointed heeled shoes on occasion. It's been about 2 years and I am amazed at how well the finish is holding up. There is a portion of flooring in the FR that gets a lot of strong afternoon sun coming through the sliding glass door. After 2 years, I cannot see any sign of fading from this sun exposure. Dh and I have been very pleased with the quality of our Lauzon floor. Which ever floor you choose, I hope you will post a follow up. For us, it was such a good feeling to have wood flooring after years and years of old dirty carpet. I hope you enjoy your new floors as much as we have! Laurie

This is an old thread, but it seems both the bamboo (Teragren) and the pecan/hickory (Armstrong) were from good companies. I suspect this poster could not have gone wrong with either. I nearly bought bamboo, but went with a handscraped hickory for the same reason, to hide flaws. My installer mentioned it was a good product based on the amount of good boards and that there were long lengths. It was not Armstrong. It seems I hear more complaints about scratches in bamboo, but that could be from buying bargain brands. My installer mentioned the Teragren bamboo I almost went with and said it was so hard, he bent nails trying to install it. Although he dropped tools on my hickory, and I have three sons, there are no dents. I've had it a year and although there were scratches in the first week, I haven't seen any since then. Maybe the oils on our feet are soaking in and preventing them? That is strange to see scratches in the first few weeks and then not for nearly a year after. I also notice that it is ambering and changing color when compared to where there are throw rugs.

The spar varnish would work, but I suspect it will be too heavy and glossy for your taste, unless you want a glass-like surface that reflects the tiniest flaw. I would personally lightly scuff-sand the salad bowl finish (it's water-based, correct, the one from General Finishes?) with 220 or 320 grit and apply a layer or two of satin PolyWhey on it. It's a water-based poly that's one of the hardest I've worked with, and I do a lot of refinishing. I've had it on our walnut-stained oak stairs for a number of years; no scratches at all yet and these stairs take some shoe and cat-claw abuse. Bonus is that the PolyWhey is absolutely without odor and dries within an hour or so. Super easy application. It's also food-safe when dry, which is always a question for urethanes. Best of luck with your project! PS: yes, if you want the traditional satin rubbed-oil finish, you will have to sand down and remove every trace of the salad bowl urethane. (Oil finishes work by sinking into the wood, and urethanes work by preventing anything from sinking into the wood.) Real oil finishes would be things like pure tung oil, boiled linseed oil, mineral oil, or preparations like Osmo or Rubio. These get rubbed in and sink into the wood fibers -- which is why they don't scratch, per se. But they also provide very little in the way of gloss and are less protective over time, requiring touchups. Oil-based cooked varnishes would be things like the Marine Spar Varnish, Waterlox, "Danish Oil" and for all intents and purposes oil-based polyurethane. These get brushed or wiped on and form a hard protective shell over the wood. But in your shoes I'd eschew either of those, and instead stick with something waterbased, so as to ensure the best bond with what you've already got on there. Thus my recommendation of the PolyWhey, which comes in a nice satin finish version. This post was edited by circuspeanut on Sat, Sep 7, 13 at 11:41