The early 1980’s were an interesting time in the wood floor finish business. Oil-modified urethane (OMU) was king. While there were a few other types of finishes being used, almost every contractor used OMU on sports floors, residential and commercial floors. However, that was going to change very quickly.
The government was putting pressure on the finish manufacturing companies due to air pollution issues. Any and all of the solvent based finishes were under attack, including the king, OMU.
At the time, I worked for the Atlas Companies of Des Moines, Iowa. They owned Nuball Corp., a janitorial supply and gymnasium coating manufacturing company, and Perry Austen Bowling Products, a manufacturer of bowling lane coatings.
The lab developed a water-based coating for bowling lanes first. It had to be tough: When you drop several hundred 16-pound bowling balls on the lane each and every day, the finish is expected to last a year. It was a successful coating, and we went to market. That finish was sold right up until the time almost all lanes went synthetic.
The manager of Nuball wanted to know if we could use it on gyms? We tested it and found it was too fast-drying for coating large areas—we left too many lap lines on the sports floors.
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A bowling lane was coated in one stroke: The finish was poured into a U-shaped applicator at the back of the lane and pulled to the front in one stroke, and the excess was pulled off onto a paper at the foul line of the lane. That meant any fast-drying finish could be used on lanes. A gym, on the other hand, has to have many passes to be able to coat the large floors, and with runs of 100 feet or more, the finish would set up before the return stroke was completed.
The lab went to work and slowed down the drying enough to allow coating the long runs without showing overlaps. It did extend the setup time a bit, but it still could be played on the next day as long as it dried with good ventilation.
Wood flooring pro Rob Chewning of Southern Woods Flooring in Bethlehem, Ga., spreads waterborne finish in 1996 with a T-bar—an invention created specifically for the purpose of spreading waterborne finishes.
The owner of the Atlas Companies sold Perry Austen to Brunswick and formed Basic Coatings in 1984 specifically to market the water-base finishes. This was a most interesting sales and marketing challenge. Here we were, a company no one had heard of, selling a coating no one ever heard of and didn’t want, at a price that was four times the going price for OMU. There were some incredulous folks who needed convincing.
The sales force at that time were enthusiastic and knowledgeable. They went into the field and trained contractor after contractor, along with the distributor’s sales force, on the use of water-base finishes. They had the backup of the R&D lab but mostly could answer and solve the field questions and issues that came up.
Competition at this introductory time was minor, but several manufacturers stepped up their game. BonaKemi did well, but janitorial supply houses that just boosted their floor waxes did not—and actually made the marketing more difficult for the successful coatings. Their failure rumors hurt the introduction of the good water-base finishes. It took a while to overcome those obstacles. Success was in the future, and making positive steps took effort.
A few pioneers in the water-base finishes come to mind. Chet Derr Jr. got behind the products, and Derr Flooring was the first distributor we set up. Chet sponsored multiple seminars and training sessions in multiple locations. On the sports floor side of the business, John Prater of Praters in Chattanooga, Tenn., also got behind the water-base finishes. he liked the fast dry times, especially for the portable floor business, and he was particularly concerned about making coating safer for his employees. Many others come to mind, but there is just not enough room to list them all.
Brent Sorbet came on board during the Des Moines flood of 1992. He worked in the physical test lab in the back of the plant and became very important to the success of the water-base finishes. He tested and wrung out every change in every coating we made. Later he did seminars and training sessions both in Des Moines and in the field.
Mickey Moore brought water-base finishes into the NOFMA schools very early on and then trained inspectors on the products to help solve issues that came up in the field.
Folks liked the fast dry times and the ability to get back on the floor the next day. The commercial job folks who had to keep a store or restaurant open for business the next day particularly liked it. Sales started to climb, then plateaued, then dropped some. On investigation, we found that while the water-base features were liked, it was just too expensive in a competitive OMU market.
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The lab went to work and developed a water-based OMU. It had many features of the water-base finish, but, like OMU, still required a longer cure time after drying. However, the cost was 30% lower. Contractors liked the price point better, and sales went up—and then plateaued and started to drop. We learned the lesson well. We needed a finish that would hold up so well that the price was not an issue.
The lab went back to work with instructions to make the single best coating they could, no matter the cost. After we introduced Street Shoe to the market, sales went up and continued to climb. What contractors liked best was no callbacks—if they did their job right, they had a happy customer and got paid!
Finish development is continuing every day. Some will be water-base, some will be 100% oils, but all will require proper training and troubleshooting to gain market share. There will always be new and better finishes being developed.
I worked for a time with companies wanting to market UV-cured coatings with some success, but the equipment was dangerous to use and expensive. Not everyone could afford it or had the ability to be careful using the equipment. I find the new LED cured 100% oils fascinating and look forward to testing them sometime in the future. Mickey Moore said it best: Knowledge is king, so learn all you can about every new product or idea. It just might be better than where you are today.
