Premium Hardwax Oils: Wood Finish You Can Trust

Anyone who’s ever worked with wood knows the challenge of protecting fine woodwork. There are more poly coats and sealers on the market than you can shake a brush at, and all promise the best wood grain protection available. But while urethane-type coatings do a fantastic job of protecting furniture and wainscoting, they can actually ruin wood’s natural beauty.

Deep penetrating hardwaxes offer a stronger, more natural-looking alternative to thick, plasticky poly coatings. They protect without the time-consuming preparation and risks that go with applying urethane-type coatings, or by restricting wood’s natural penchant for expanding and contracting. Hardwaxes are also less toxic than poly coats. That makes them inherently safer to use indoors where the most treasured woodworks are likely to be found.

Premium Hardwax Oils Deliver Premium Woodworker Results

From hardwood floors and classic furniture, to custom cabinets and ceiling beams, nothing matches the richness, the versatility or the feeling of stability that comes from natural wood. Its hygroscopic nature, however, means that whatever protection is used, wood’s impulse to breathe needs to considered. 

That’s why premium blended hardwax oils are the hands-down favourite for tough, water-resistant finishes that protect wood’s natural strength and beauty without ruining its warmth or disregarding its tendency for absorbing and releasing moisture.

Hardwax wood finishes are manufactured using natural components and safe chemical driers and solvents that are formulated to meet application-specific drying times and wear resistances. And because hardwax finishes actually penetrate wood surfaces – not just cure on top of them – they offer a perfect range of key benefits that include:

• Deep, fibrous stability. Because hardwaxes are engineered to soak deep into wood fibers, they’re able to offer a level of structural protection and moisture stability that isn’t possible with poly-type coatings that only reside on wood surfaces.
• Durable, natural-looking protection. The penetrative nature of hardwaxes not only forms a more durable bond than surface-setting finishes, they also won’t discolour from UV exposure, or crack due to age or natural expansion the way thick coatings ordinarily do.
• Rich, natural look and feel. The hardwax oils are available in matte, semi-matte, satin and gloss sheens, don’t require excessive surface prep or multiple wipedowns before applying and are able to highlight a wood’s natural grain without a thick, plasticky coating.

No matter if it’s a treasured family heirloom or a massive custom entryway, natural hardwaxes allow ordinary homeowners to protect any wooden surface with the same premium grade results as professional chippies and woodworkers. And while hardwax oil finishes may cost a bit more than standard urethane poly coatings, their easy brush-on/roll-on/sponge-on application and smooth opaque coverage helps retain the all-natural beauty of any wooden surface, even if it needs repairing and refinishing.

Hardwaxes Simplify Wood Repairs and Refinishing

Regardless of whether it’s light scratches on a mildly aged countertop, or deep gouges in an elegant new parquet floor, wood repairs can be tricky. As a minimum, a proper repair and refinishing job requires the right finishing tools and filler materials. And if the surface needing repairs is covered in several coats of urethane-type protectant, the repair can be twice as difficult.

While it may be possible to sand away light layers of urethane poly coat or varnish to refinish minor scratches without them looking too obvious, there’s no way to repair deep scratches without stripping the entire surface down to bare wood before beginning any work. Refinishing a surface treated with a hardwax oil wood finish, however, is a considerably simpler process that affords advantages that include:

• Instantaneous spot repairs. Spot fixing poly coated woodworks can leave surfaces blemished and uneven, while spot repairs to surfaces originally finished with a hardwax oil require buffing out to refinish.
• Simplified deep repairs. Fixing a heavily gouged poly coated surface typically means performing a dusty, time-consuming stripdown even before starting the actual repair. With a hardwax finish though, repairing deep gouges is as simple as performing a spot repair.
• Every repair, perfect blended. Although it’s virtually impossible to blend repairs made with standard poly coated, or even specially formulated interior timber finishes, repairs over hardwax oiled surfaces are practically invisible and blend and feather perfectly.

Make no mistake: unlike poly coated surfaces that need to be completely stripped down to perform even the most modest spot repairs, refinishing jobs of any size can be made to hardwaxed woods as easily as if they were still just bare wood. And unlike solvent-infused poly coats and varnishes, hardwax oil finishes aren’t made from chemicals that can have a negative effect on people’s health, both during finishing and potentially years afterward.

Natural Components Make Hardwax Oils Safe and Effective

Perhaps the most understated but significant advantage that hardwax oil finishes have over urethane-type coatings is the short- and long-term impact of their components. That’s because as the chemicals in poly coatings cure and are exposed to environmental factors like wear and evaporation, the off-gassing of potentially hazardous VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) can inevitably lead to a host of unwanted respiratory, digestive and neurological problems.

Whether it’s the result of prolonged off-gassing due to sunlight and UV exposure, or the creation of fine dust particles during a prolonged refinishing project, poly coating VOCs like toluene, ethylbenzene and even formaldehyde can still be released years after they’ve cured. Natural wood hardwaxes, however, don’t contain toxic poly-based solvents, and are formulated from safe, VOC-free vegetable oils and waxes such as:

• Linseed oil. Linseed oil is a deep penetrating carrier agent that enhances a wood’s natural grain while forming a durable fibrous bond at the molecular level.
• Tung oil. In addition to being a non-toxic, fast drying component, tung oil also provides a tough, water resistant finish that’s ideal for all types of furniture and flooring hardwaxes.
• Carnuba wax. Carnuba wax is similar to tung oil in that it aides in speeding up the drying process, as well as providing deep penetrating protection that’s especially beneficial for aged wood.

Hardwax oil components also go on and clean up easier than poly coats and urethane varnishes. There are no worries about dust or bubbles being trapped during the application, and cleanups don’t involve the release of even more spirits and solvents in the working area.

The Final Word

At the end of the day, while hardwax oil may require more frequent treatments than poly coat varnishes, it offers unrivaled, rich-grained protection that doesn’t risk ruining wood’s natural beauty. And with no possibility of yellowing, cracking or thick plasticky buildup, this type of oils is just as effective on floors and decks as it is on delicate woodworks like antiques and moldings.

Premium blended oils have everything a woodworker or home owner needs to take care of all their wooden surfaces. No matter it’s finishing or refinishing, they’re the right choice for the best results.

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