Welcome back to the Flooring Africa channel. My name is Barry, your self-confessed flooring nerd,
and today we're going to be chatting to Ryan from Osmo, Osmo hard wax finishes. And this is
all about the scratch pattern, standing for those who don't know, and why it is such an
integral component in the end result of your finish, on how it ensures the
actual attachment to the wood, on how we make sure that it brings all that beautiful wood
texture and luster to the surface without giving you horrible scratch pigtails,
and on how we ensure the best end result with the longest lasting end-aesthetic that's really
going to deliver value. We look forward to getting into the detail with Osmo Africa.
[Barry] All right so today we're getting into preparing your wood substrate, be it for a project or
a floor. You need to go through the correct sanding process. So what is the correct sanding process for
oil waxed oil? [Ryan] So the first thing you really want to do is make sure that you are dealing with a
clean surface. So there's no point trying to sand a dirty surface. And then whether you're using a
Rotex or machine or a mechanical sander or sanding by hand, or whatever process you're doing,
one of the most important things from our point of view is really to be focusing on going through the
correct grit pattern and that's something that people often think, oh sanding is such a las,
like it's the worst part. I don't really want to do it. I want to get it through it as quickly as
possible, and unfortunately or fortunately, depending on which way you're looking at it,
a oiled surface or a hard waxed oil surface like Osmo, the oil accentuates
the characteristics of whatever you're putting it onto. So if you're not going to put in the time and
get the surface prepped really well, there is a very high possibility that scratches or
the pigtail patterns that you do from sanding too fast and sort of skipping too quickly are
are still going to be visible. So the oil doesn't hide, like many other finishes do, it accentuates.
[Barry] So sanding, we're scratching the floor ultimately, so what I understand from the flooring industry
is that, you know, when we open up the floor we're using quite an aggressive,
low number, so the lower the number the more aggressive the grit is, and then the bigger the
number the finer the grit is. And generally in the flooring process we will start off at a 30 or 40
60 depending, and then we'll skip every alternate number and go up to next, to around about 120 grit
generally for a flooring. And what you're doing is you're opening up the floor, sanding it or sanding
away potentially the old coating, the surface that you don't know what's happened to it, so you're
opening up the floor nice and evenly and then you are reducing that scratch pattern with every
subsequent grit paper that you're going through until you get a nice even scratch pattern, which
won't show those little circles or those little what you've got pigtails all right.
[Ryan] So exactly what Barry was talking about, you can see that a 60 grit pattern is really rough
relative to a 180 grit pattern. So you can see there's a substantial difference between that
and that's the bigger the grit, or the lower the grit, the more wood is going to be pulled out
through each successive run. Some information that that I got recently, which I thought was really
interesting or I found really interesting, is that with every successive sanding grit that you
go up to, you should be sanding for double the time. So if you're spending two minutes on with a 60
and then you're going to skip 80 and go to 100 or you're going to go through the process and go
80, 100, 120, for flooring particularly that's where we want to to end. So 60 should be
two minutes, 80 would then be four minutes, and and that's really a general guideline to
to go through to ensure that you are really sanding and finishing the surface correctly.
[Barry] So I just want to ask you, like you wouldn't go how high would you go with regards to the sanding
grit because obviously you still need a little bit of texture for the the product to bind to?
[Ryan] Yeah so certainly for flooring stop at 120. You really do want the oil to have
an opportunity to penetrate into the wood and the wax really needs to grip into something.
In terms of smoother surfaces or surfaces that you're requiring a smoother finish that is
not going to be abused as much as a floor is, so counter tops kitchen, counters, tables, furniture,
180 is really the limit of of where where we believe and where Osmo as a brand believes
that you need to stop. [Barry] Okay because I can well imagine that if you go too high that you'll
almost burnish the surface and you'll actually flatten out that grain where it will resist
taking in the product. So it really is that's good advice. I've learned something.
[Ryan] Every day is a school day. [Barry] Thanks Ryan. Where can we access these products from you? How do we find you?
[Ryan] Barry, easiest ways to go onto our website www.osmo.africa
and on that we have a e-commerce platform where you can buy directly from us or we can point you
in the direction of retail partners that are stocking the product. [Barry] Fantastic sounds easy.