Monday, September 19, 2011

Universal Floors Restores Historic Floor using Waterlox at Virginia’s National Sporting Library & Museum

MIDDLEBURG, Virginia – In the heart of beautiful Virginia horse country sits a legendary facility dedicated to equestrians, field sports and the arts.

The National Sporting Library & Museum, founded in 1954, is dedicated to preserving, promoting, and sharing the literature, art, and culture of equestrian and field sports. The not-for-profit Museum recently expanded with an addition and overall they have expanded to become an important research facility and art museum with over 17,000 books and works of art in the collections.

A major part of the renovation was taking the floors and making sure they were restored to meet the aesthetic needs of the facility, overall. According to Sprigg Lynn, principal officer for Washington, D.C.-based Universal Floors, the project was truly “historic” in every way.

“They had a beautiful museum that they expanded as well as another old historic building, and basically the expansion quadrupled the size of it,” Lynn said. “But it was all done to look like it was from the 1700s and since we had the original floors we had to do a lot of hand scraping and light sanding before we finished it.”

Once the floor was ready to be finished, the only product that Lynn would consider for such an important application was Waterlox Original Sealer/Finish.

“Waterlox brings out the original character of the wood and when it dries it literally becomes a part of the wood, rather than a surface on top of it. That’s why we use it whenever possible. It takes the rich appearance that Tung oil brings out by using Waterlox to protect and showcase floors like these,” Lynn added.

The institution, open to the public, offers free lectures on equestrian and field sports and the John H. Daniels Fellowship program supports scholarships and shares information through exhibits, seminars, publications and special events.

Waterlox resin-modified Tung oil-based finishes are different from other types of wood finishes on the market and offer a “best of both worlds” alternative. For example, raw oils penetrate into the wood but will not provide any real protection to the substrate and will need to be recoated often due to oxidation.

Surface finishes such as urethanes (either water or oil-based) will lie on top of the surface, look more like plastic, can be brittle and once breached will fail. The reason we are the best of both worlds is because Waterlox’s resin-modified Tung oil formation penetrates like raw oil, but protects and nurtures the wood without being brittle and having the plastic look of surface finishes.

Waterlox finishes penetrate into the pores of the wood and build up to a film that protects and nurtures the wood; and on top of all that are easier to restore and re-coat.

About Waterlox
Founded in 1910, Waterlox Coatings Corporation, based in Cleveland, Ohio, is the nation’s leading manufacturer of premium wood finishes, handmade from resin-modified Tung oil. A fourth-generation, family-owned company, now run by Chief Executive Officer Jay Hawkins and Vice President Kellie Hawkins Schaffner, Waterlox continues to manufacture products using the finest ingredients, combining Tung oil, resins, mineral spirits and other ingredients to produce a complete wood finish that gives the look and feel of naturally oiled wood. Waterlox products represent the flooring industry’s highest level of quality protection for both interior and exterior wood finishing projects and also supply tools for application.

For more information about Waterlox, please visit www.waterlox.com or call (800) 321.0377. To visit Waterlox on Facebook, click HERE, or you can follow Waterlox on Twitter at @tungoilfinishes.

To learn more about the National Sporting Library & Museum, visit www.nsl.org.

Media Contact:
Ed DeMask / DeMask Marketing
630-768-1404, cell
630-389-0572, office
ed@demaskmarketing.com