Poly coating New Internal Timber Stairs

Today I’m going to highlight the steps to ensuring your new timber stairs are prepared and coated to the highest standard.

Step 1 - Colour match a wood grain putty to fill any grain splits or imperfections. The timber in these pictures is the beautiful Blackbutt.

Step 2 - Sand back all filler and give a general light sand with a 150-180 grit sand paper to settle the grain of the timber.

Step 3 - Use a timber clean product to remove any oils and dirt marks out of the timber. These marks cannot always be seen to the naked eye. But after coating they can appear as the oils form hands or feet interact with the coating. So it’s important to clean the timber. Then give a light sand again if timber has raised after cleaning.

Step 4 - Apply Sealer coat that can be sanded afterwards. There are many domestic coatings, however a professional flooring grade coating is best to use. These products such as Intergrain Enviropro 2 pack acrylic or Loba, or Bona are not found in Bunnings. Search online to purchase.

Step 5 - Give a light 180-240 grit paper sand to smooth out after sealer coat.

Step 6 - Appy to coats of finish coating. I prefer the 2 Pack Waterbased coatings as they are low odour and are much more durable, (ie scratch resistant and fade resistant) than the single pack domestic hardware sold products. You might choose to use a full sand paper between coats if any dirt of dust got caught in first coat but sanding is not generally necessary between coats and you don’t want to rub it too much. See attached pictures for recent finished job in Mona Vale on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

Finished product - Blackbutt Timber

Applying Sealer Coat after sanding and cleaning