Distressing of the wood

If your wood has been distressed to give the appearance of ‘old, worn and an already lived on’ look, the process we use does distress the whole board including the tongue & groove part of the board. This means extra time and patience need to be allowed in the fitting process in order to achieve a fully tight joint between planks.Distressing of the wood will cause some of the top part of the oak to split and break off. This is a natural part of the manufacturing process and is an aspect of the character of the final flooring finish.

Fuming of the wood

Fuming is done to the wood to gently age the wood and give the wood the appearance the wood is old, the more we fume the wood the older the wood looks. This is a completely natural reaction with the tannins in the wood. Some parts of the oak will react more strongly than others with the fuming process, therefore colour variation is to be expected. It is down to the skill and expertise of an experience fitter to fit a floor that has been fumed to ensure each piece is chosen and laid sympathetically to create an overall aged look to the floor.

Scorching of the wood

Scorching of the oak surface is another technique we use to create a very aged oak floor. The scorching is done by hand applying a very hot flame across the oak face board by board. Please be aware the scorching is done in such a way that once fit correctly the appearance is very natural and gentle.

Brushing

Brushing is done to simulate gentle weathering of the oak surface. Please note that during the brushing process of each batch, each board is brushed exactly through the same process.

Color variation

Wood is a natural material and will have variations from board to board and even with a board, not only in the visual features such as grain, knots and growth rings, but more subtlety in the mineral density and fibre density ratio in the exposed wood surface. This natural variation in the wood responds to the process reactions during the manufacturing process whereby the speed of the reactions and/or the stain absorption saturation point can give rise to variation in hue and density of the observed colour. The result is a distribution or range of colours and tones around a central median colour. Subtle variations between individual trees and different parts of the same tree can result in different ranges of colour hue and density, and also a difference in the median colour of a board exposed to the same production process. The colour variation due to the production process is minimised by treating each order as a single batch and running all of the boards through each process stage contiguously.