I want to use oil and wax for the interior stair treads. Will they hold up to traffic?

That's how a question I received the other day sounded. If the right products are chosen, the steps will not scratch and will even look great. Wax and oil are considered to be products without resistance to scratching, abrasion and mechanical impact, which is why many people choose other products to protect their stairs or wooden floors. But there are many different types of oil and wax, both natural and synthetic, and their resistance varies quite widely. Products specifically formulated to protect stairs and floors are labeled as such (wood floor wax, hard floor oil, etc.), so it's not hard to find the right one. What's extra about traffic and abrasion resistant oil and wax, and how do they differ from similar materials used to finish furniture? I intend to answer this question below.

Natural materials for finishing floors

Fans of using natural materials to finish wood can rest assured that these products are also available for floors. They don't have added synthetics to make them tougher because there's both an oil and a wax tough enough to withstand heavy traffic. These are tung oil and carnauba wax.

Tung oil has been known and used for the protection of wood for thousands of years, with mentions of its use in the writings of Confucius (500 B.C.). It is harsh compared to linseed oil - commonly used to protect wood - because it polymerizes on contact with oxygen in the air, hardening. As a liquid, it penetrates deep into the wood, where it reacts with the existing oxygen, making the surface of the wood much harder. Tung oil is extracted from the nuts of the tung tree, native to China, and may also be known as nut oil or wood oil. For a long time, China was the only country producing tung oil, but modern times have seen the acclimatization of the tung tree in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and the USA, which have become oil-producing countries. More information on tung oil here.

Carnauba wax is the hardest natural wax. It is secreted by the leaves of the Brazilian palm tree Copernica Corifera to protect them from rainwater and strong sunlight. The wax has a high softening point (approx. 85°C) and remains solid even at high air temperatures. This protects the palm leaves from rotting in hot and rainy seasons, but also in dry periods when high temperatures can lead to dehydration.

To make floor oils and waxes, manufacturers mix these hard materials with other natural oils and waxes, finding the formula that gives the best results. Kreidezeit, the German manufacturer recognized for the quality of its products, uses resistant floor oil a mixture of tung oil and linseed oil, with turpentine oil extracted from conifer resin as solvent. Kreidezeit floor wax is a mixture of beeswax and carnauba wax, as well as tung, linseed and turpentine oils. It is used to protect wooden steps, parquet or floorboards, giving them very good abrasion resistance. And all without any added synthetics. The best results are obtained if floors are first treated with oil, 2-3 coats to allow the wood to absorb enough, then a coat of wax is applied. This will further protect the surfaces and give them a very nice satin sheen, while making them easier to maintain.

Synthetic variants

There are also synthetic wax and oil variants, which are cheaper and have some improved properties compared to natural products. Increased strength or reduced drying time can be achieved by adding synthetic additives or using synthetic resins. The most popular flooring oil is polyurethane oil, a mixture of linseed oil and polyurethane resins (modified urethane). Hardness is achieved by polymerization of the polyurethane resin in the presence of air and can reach the level of polyurethane varnishes. The quality of these oils depends on the solid body (resin) content, and the higher the solid body content, the better. Unlike natural oils, synthetics use ordinary organic diluents, the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can be inconvenient. Sometimes linseed oil is substituted for mineral oil obtained by distillation of petroleum or synthetic oils obtained by chemical processes to make more affordable products.

The synthetic equivalent of carnauba wax is paraffin modified by cross-linking. Paraffin wax is a compound obtained from petroleum (a mixture of aliphatic hydrocarbons), discovered in 1830. At that time it replaced tallow used as fuel for combustion in lamps. The discovery of paraffin wax was greeted with enthusiasm because it burned cleaner and without interruption. Its advanced processing led both to high purification and to derived products with improved qualities. Highly purified is used in the cosmetics industry and even in the food industry to protect stored or transported fruits and vegetables. The advantage of using paraffin wax in food is that it cannot be digested by the human body and is totally eliminated. To protect wood, it is used in mixtures with other waxes and natural or synthetic oils, each manufacturer has its own recipe. Petroleum solvents such as white spirit, gas or petrosine are used.

Choice of wood and finish

Good durability of stair treads and floors also depends on the wood chosen, not just the finish. No matter how hard the finish, if the wood underneath is soft, it cannot make up for its lack of strength. Hard, durable wood is used for such uses. English speakers divide wood into hard wood and soft wood, the equivalent of our hardwoods and softwoods. We can't go by this criterion when choosing wood for flooring, because a lime or poplar floor would be very good and we wouldn't need a pine floor. The choice is based on the density of the wood (the denser the better), its resistance to bending, splitting or scratching. Good woods for flooring are oak, beech, acacia, ash, ash, spruce, pine, pine, spruce.

In addition to strength, oil and floor waxes give the wood a natural and pleasant look. Such materials have a better elasticity than specially formulated varnishes, and the wood can move and exchange moisture with the environment without cracks or breaks in the film. If you have solid wood stairs and floors and live in areas with large variations in humidity between seasons, choosing an oil and/or wax-based finish can save you a lot of trouble.