Finish & Grade

Consider your lifestyle and the type of wear your flooring or other wood product will experience when choosing a finish. Surface finishes form a protective coating on the surface while penetrating finishes permeate the wood often adding hardness to provide protection.

Finishes

Prefinished

Prefinished floors are finished in a controlled factory setting and are shipped to the client as a finished product ready to be installed. Upon installation, prefinished floors can immediately be walked on. Hunt Hardwood is able to match or create custom colors for your prefinished floor, or you can choose a color from our collections.

Unfinished

Unfinished floors are installed with no finish and are later finished on site. Drying time and establishing a proper environment prior to the finishing process can be expected.

The decision whether to use prefinished or unfinished will depend on your particular application – both offer a specific combination of advantages.

Grade

Varying grades from clear to character of white oak.

All cuts of woods and many species come in varying levels of character. There is character grade to clear grade and everything in between. #1 Common, #2 Common, and Select & Better are terms used in the industry that refer to grade. Livesawn planks are always character grade. We work with our clients to set an expectation on grade per the requirements of the project.

Please refer to the below links for some examples of common grading standards.

• Livesawn Visual Grading Standards
• Rift & Quartersawn Light Character Visual Grading Standards
• The National Wood Flooring Association (NWFA) also has information here about grade.

Grading Process

Before it’s made into flooring, lumber takes a turn on the grading wheel and is inspected by hand and expertly graded. As this massive wheel turns, planks are separated into different quadrants of the mill based on their visual characteristics.

The photo to the right is our grading wheel. Lumber is sorted based on visual characteristics and pulled from this wheel and sorted by grade to be made into flooring. We also grade our planks after they are manufactured into flooring to be sure that our grade matches the control sample and the expectations of the client. The control sample is essential to providing a snapshot of your final product. Hunt Hardwood has a unique ability to control our products from when they come from the forest and are made into lumber. This highly involved process allows us to bring value and customization to any project.