Treating & Painting Modular Stage Floor Boards

[DavidCoull]

Hi Everyone.

 

I was just wondering what everyone uses, or would suggest using, to treat and paint some modular stage floor boards. I have 24, 1 metre squared floorboards. They are roughly 30mm thick, layered plywood. They will be used in indoor and outdoor settings. Although they would be covered inside a marquee or something similar, they would still be exposed to moisture and outdoor conditions. I was looking for a solution for painting one side of them Matt black, as the other side is already carpeted and finished. I would need to protect the wood from water damage, making them easy to clean when they get muddy etc. What treatments, paints would everyone recommend.

 

Many Thanks.

David C.

[Dave m]

First thing I'd do would be to put down a disposable dust sheet, or a blue tarp, to protect the floor from damp.Then look for a Matt floor paint from maybe flints? Possibly use a varnish under the black? More for the wood's sake than the black paint protection

https://shop.flints.co.uk/Products/All/PAT023

Edited May 24, 2020 by Dave m

[sunray]

When we hire dance floor it comes with a rubber sheet, rather like EPDM roofing. Much more durable than blue tarp and has some antislip properties.

First thing I'd do would be to put down a disposable dust sheet, or a blue tarp, to protect the floor from damp.Then look for a Matt floor paint from maybe flints? Possibly use a varnish under the black? More for the wood's sake than the black paint protection

https://shop.flints....ucts/All/PAT023

[Deep C]

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but maybe others will find this useful

 

one of my other passions in life is railway preservation and have helped preserve and restore several wooden bodied railway vehicles. and as the cost and availability of sheet timber in the sizes required is rather prohibitive, we tend to use plywood to replace life expired paneling.

The problem with plywood is that if moisture gets in between the laminations, over time it will start to delaminate painting the edges with paint or varnish will help to reduce moisture ingress but as this only covers the surface any damage to the paint will allow moisture to get in.

So to overcome this problem we use the following method.

First mix a 50/50 solution of spirit based varnish and white spirit and soak the ends and sides of the plywood sheet keep doing this until the plywood will absorb no more, the white spirit will wick in between the laminations pulling the varnish in with it then leave for a couple of days to dry.

then using a good quality yachting varnish repeat the treatment using a 25% varnish, 75% white spirit mix, once this has dried give it a couple of coats of 100% varnish, also it's a good idea to treat any knots on the sheet the same way.

If you are going to paint over the varnish do remember to sand the varnish first to key it, you would be amazed how many people I have seen forget this step and wonder why there beautifully painted waggon starts to peel.

one word of warning some very cheap plywoods use cheap glues to bond the laminations and the white spirit can break that bond causing the plywood to fall apart so try on an off cut first. and please don't ask me how I know that.

this method was shown to me by a carriage restorer called Steve Middleton and a gallery of his work can be seen here https://www.statelytrains.com/index.html

 

Cheers

 

Colin

Edited March 12, 2021 by Deep C