Tung Oil, pure 100% Tung oil takes a very long time to dry and then cure. Most of time, we are talking about a Tung Oil blended product or blending it ourselves, as the customer. Common thinners for are citrus solvent, mineral spirits, or odorless mineral spirits. The thinners can be extremely harsh and really put some biproducts into the air during the curing process and beyond. For example, the Behr version contains petroleum waxes, petroleum distillate solvents and metallic driers. While the pure Tung Oil with additives have a zero VOC rating, this is kind of like the word natural, it does not guarantee safety. The claim of zero-VOC (a legal term) is misleading. These finishes produce natural volatile compounds during install and beyond, they are not harmful to everyone but those who are sensitive can have problems.

Milk Paint Texas DIY floor, one of favorites. For the recipe, give us call or email now.

How long does it take to acclimate pine, how long does acclimation take depends upon moisture content.

04 Dec

Acclimation in six steps

Finish and Install, Wood Floor Shopping

18 Oct

Finish to order

Finish and Install, Our favorite Finishes

11 Apr

The eco-friendly floor

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

12 Feb

Sustainable Timber

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

Sustainable timber, i.e., timber that has been harvested and replenished which may occur naturally or farmed. ‘Sustainable Forestry’, however, involves more than just planting a tree when you cut one down. Sustainable timber management or forestry means doing no ecological damage to the surrounding environment.

Plant a tree

To those who want to help stop Global Warming- buy a real wood floor and plant a tree.

Healthy, sustainably harvested timber creates forest that become more resistant to wildfire, insects, disease, and the impacts of climate change. Like so many things, the message that the timber industry and sustainable forestry are contributing to climate change has gotten distorted. When you consider the replacement products we use instead of wood, i.e., petroleum-based vinyl, composites, and plastic the eco-friendly product is obviously real wood. What about concrete and steel? “As conservationists, we make building materials that store carbon and require far fewer fossil fuels to produce compared to steel and concrete.” (Forest2Market.com September 2022).

Sustainable timber means green

As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide CO2 from the atmosphere and release oxygen. We learned this in junior high. Not only do trees sequester or hold carbon, but they also put it to use. Great but what happens when you turn this tree into a floor? Wood flooring is about 50 percent carbon by dry weight. Wood products continue to store much of this carbon indefinitely. In the case of buildings, the carbon is kept out of the atmosphere for the lifetime of the structure—or longer if the wood is reclaimed and used to manufacture other products.

Plant more trees

In national parks and designated wilderness areas, the federal government is prohibited by law from sustainably harvesting and replanting trees. According to U.S. Forest Service-Forest Inventory and Analysis data, lands set aside from active forest management – such as parks and wilderness – serve as a carbon source because trees are dying at faster rates than they are growing.

Sustainable timber create floors that last forever

No matter what else you hear while shopping, solid 3/4 floors should outlive the house, i.e., be salvaged one day. On the other hand, all ‘floor covers’ with very few exceptions, everything else ends up in a landfill. Seriously, the bathroom counter-top you see here was produced by a novice salvaged decking.

No clear cutting

To be clear, we are not talking about clear cutting or harvesting non sustainable forest. Anti-forestry activists cling to the flawed assumption that old trees will sequester and store carbon. As if old trees are immortal and should be forever untouched. Not so fast! The science is that younger trees sequester carbon at higher rates than older trees, yes. Even worse, when older trees die, they emit carbon and methane.

Failing to clear dead trees causes wildfires

Conservationists are not to be confused with anti-forestry activists, even though the media often gives them that label. Anti-forestry activists reject Indigenous knowledge and experience that comes from thousands of years of managing forests, while raising millions of dollars to perpetuate the idea that the United States risk deforestation. Far from scarce, many western landscapes, “have overstocked stands with more trees than the forests can support”.

Salvaged pine decking using skins 1/2 thick

16 Aug

Why homeowners buy LVT

Customer Bill of Rights, Wood Floor Shopping

Why do people buy ‘single use’ floors? (A product designed with planned obsolescence ridiculous promises and useless warranties.)

LVT MARKETING- Waterproof- Lifetime Warranty-and Luxury in the name.

Homeowners buy it because the marketing is amazing and frankly trying to find real wood wears them out over time. Hand it to the majors, they’ve created a repeat customer product line; a new one about every decade or so. The industry is a mess everyone wants fake wood or vinyl or plastic; whatever can be torn up and thrown in a landfill one day to make room for another ‘single use’ cover. Manufactures and their distributors have four conventions per year and one huge one just to talk about all the new and latest technology that they are going to sell homeowners. All of this is to perpetuate a population of consumers and salespeople buying into a false premise, fake is better than real.

Real wood is Green

Repurpose real wood

Repurpose real wood – salvaged or reclaimed. We want everyone to repurpose real wood. With that in mind, please enjoy this video which cost us $75.00 six years ago, We are “thrifty” like most of our customers, but the content is good. Salvaged is ‘saved’, reclaimed is repurposed; and not the kind of repurposing we are talking about with our folk art. The video should clear it up and if you are shopping for reclaimed […]

Knotty Southern Yellow Pine floors MI lake

Glue down Southern Pine

In reality, you can glue down Southern Pine in standard 3/4 thickness. No problem, you want to glue down Southern Pine you use Bostiks Best. It has a built in moisture barrier and is urethane based so that is allows movement like a nail. But today, in this blog glue down Southern Pine is 1/2 inch, with the long lengths up to 14′ an option. SYP Direct does not sell anything but real wood and […]

How to identify Heart Pine

Welcome to our blog post on how to identify heart pine. To be clear, we are talking about how to identify New Heart Pine. In this informative guide, we will provide you with valuable insights on recognizing heartwood, and in a broader context, ‘heart content’. Both of these are essential for those homeowners (installation professionals) looking for quality New Heart Pine. Quality is easy to define, with the end result being an installation and a […]

Antique Reclaimed Heart Pine with saw marks

Baseball, Apple Pie and Southern Pine

It has to be real wood. Southern Pine, real wood, is the most Eco-friendly choice for your floor, period. The exceptions, of course, are endangered or illegal timber, but that is not relevant to our discussion. Our New Heart Pine is not farmed and take from private landowners. While our Yellow Pine is sourced from North Louisiana, farmed timber. That is great information but the reason the real wood is green? IT LAST FOREVER. In […]

SYP Direct sells White Oak solid hardwood flooring

North Carolina

In 2018 SYP Direct was named Houzz Hardwood flooring dealer of the year in South Carolina, but North Carolina was the #1 state for sales. In fact, the two Carolina’s have both been in our top 5 states by sales volume for 14 years in a row. The reasons are not all about style and taste because when are talking about North Carolina and ‘her’ sister to the south, the population varies dramatically from coastal […]

Shipping to California

Yes, we ship to California, Oregon and Washington State. Nationwide with A+ BBB rating.

Box Store Pine Floors

Box store pine floors are not as good as ours and they are more expensive. Let me repeat, apples to apples they way more expensive. And even their cheaper stuff is stupid expensive for what it is, or certainly what it is not. In world where laminate and hardwood are regularly used to market some floor cover, you might want to use a healthy skepticism when floor shopping. Rule number 1- or at least the […]

Dog Friendly

2024 Dog Friendly Floors Update Dog friendly floors are all about the finish. Of course, you will here that real wood is not good for big dogs or even dogs in general. This is simply not true, at all. However, before we talk about the finish, we should address the question of Southern Pine and if it is a dog friendly floor. There is so much confusion regarding pine because there are so many variations [...]

Prefinished or Unfinished floors?

When you are deciding between prefinished or unfinished floors the first consideration should be your experience, or a trusted professional with the experience. Prefinished hardwood floors have had all the work done to them before they arrive in your home and are ready to be installed. In most cases this means sanded, stained, and finished with a UV aluminum oxide coating as a topcoat. On the other hand, unfinished boards require; acclimation, finish, drying time, […]

What do ‘not know’ about VOC’s (AND FYI that picture is Independence Hall)

The answer is that very few of us know they exist in almost everything manufactured for mass merchandising. Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) can be used to produce products and created as biproducts. VOC’s can be harmless; they can be dangerous but the majority of just the “unknown” as is not enough information to make a determination. Paint, wood-finishing products, lacquers, hydraulic fluids, petroleum fuels, adhesives, pesticides, cleaning supplies, building materials, furniture, and electronic equipment such as printers all contain VOC’s.

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Buying flooring online means knowing your source

16 Aug

Reclaimed or Salvaged

Heart Pine

Reclaimed or salvaged?

What is the difference between reclaimed and salvaged? If you were in the flooring industry someone might say $15 a square foot, and they wouldn’t be far off. So, if you’re shopping for reclaimed oak or heart pine it’s important to know what you’re looking at it’s important to know where it came from or its provenance.

Salvaged Heart Pine Accent Walls

Salvaged is something like an old floor being taken up trimmed out and turned into an accent wall, as seen on the left. (If you are interested in Salvaged dirty top wall skins click the pic) But back to the question at hand what is the difference between salvaged and reclaimed? Reclaimed means to be repurposed reclaimed, i.e., when beam turned into flooring.

New is Reclaimed and Reclaimed is Salvaged, that is the definition of Green.

Accent Walls?

Learn more- easy to install and to make look “cool”. If I can do it anyone can.

Rustic does not always have knots and vice versa

19 Jul

Laminate is not wood

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

Laminate is not wood, nor is it a floor, it is a floor cover made of chemicals and composites. Imagine a photocopy of real wood chemically bound to particle board or cheap composites. Made with synthetic materials or very thinly sliced pieces of wood, laminate equals replica. Made to look like wood grain by using a method similar to printing a photo, i.e., designed to fool those not paying attention.

Laminate is not wood- what is it?

So, in simplest terms, you print a layer of wood-colored plastic and then adhere it to a composite wood substrate like particle board.

Landfills are full of laminate and engineered floors

Laminate = Landfills

As we will discuss later in our post, the variety of substrates used differ widely in quality and components. Chinese laminate manufacturers use a wide range of materials including dangerous chemicals. First, China leads the world in carbon pollution by a large and growing margin. Second, it has virtually no regulations regarding products imported and shipped back the United States.

What is in it?

The chemicals used in manufacturing laminate are dangerous and they are the fastest growing component of our landfills. ’s difficult to quantify what chemicals, will leach from laminates once they hit the landfill. Not to mention the emissions from incineration. To put it simply, this stuff doesn’t decompose, because of all the chemicals and glues, the material never breaks down organically.

Laminate is not wood imported it is re-imported

Laminated wood is a rimport, a re-imported bi product of our timber. We ship our trees to China only to bring it back home full of toxic chemicals. We send them solid wood, which requires no toxic chemicals to produce, and in return we get plastic ‘wood like’ composite garbage. Today upwards of 10% of Americans have laminate flooring or some type of vinyl. Every bit of it will end up in landfills poisoning the groundwater and damaging the air quality.

Laminate is not wood nor is it a floor- it is a floor cover

Laminate and Engineered floor covers are filling our landfills. Over the next 4-5 years, deposits into landfills will double from current levels of 300,000,000 lb. per year. Laminate & Engineered, add in LVT too, are a leased floor covers which rot forever on public lands? LVT, laminate and engineered floors are not green, they are not even biodegradable. Environmentalist scream about deforestation, but what is “greener” than One House, One Floor.

Have your floors reclaimed instead of landfilled

If we put the entire carbon footprint of Southern Pine flooring into the carbon footprint single use floor covers, and their chemicals products it would be like putting a BB into a boxcar.

17 Feb

Why use VOCs?

Misconceptions, Misdirections and Misinformation

Why Are VOCs Still Used?

What a great question? The answer is that very few of us know they exist in almost everything manufactured for mass merchandising. Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) can be used to produce products and created as biproducts. VOC’s can be harmless; they can be dangerous but the majority of just the “unknown” as is not enough information to make a determination. Paint, wood-finishing products, lacquers, hydraulic fluids, petroleum fuels, adhesives, pesticides, cleaning supplies, building materials, furniture, and electronic equipment such as printers all contain VOC’s.

The footprint of fake wood

If you listen to most “enviromental” warriors, logging and timber is the equivilent of fossil fuels when accessing a carbon footprint. This is ridiculous. Managed timber doesn’t lend itself to wildfires and real wood doesn’t end up in the landfill. If every house only had one floor over its lifetime, how many tear out and installations would that save, the house? Real wood floors will outlive your house. In fact, one day they will be reclaimed or salvaged as they are reinvented a century later. Try that with laminate.

Real is good

wide plank solid real wood floor finished tinted oils

'Pure' on CHP

Caribbean Heart Pine with Monocoat Pure finish — Moncoat "Pure"

Do not blame others

The manufacturing process no longer occurs in the United States and there is no possible way to regulate the number of vendors sending VOCs into the U.S. However, do not blame the countries doing the manufacturing because they are not the sellers! Consumers depend on the manufacturers to protect their health, first and foremost. Unfortunately, a large majority of retailers continue to use VOCs despite their harmful effects. Why do they continue to use VOCs? Demand for cheap goods always gets the blame, and while it plays a part; that demand was created by the cheap manufacturing processes not vice versa.

25 Mar

Harmful chemicals or VOC’s

Finish and Install

Tung oil on coat on Caribbean Heart Pine

16 Jan

Urethane or Oil Finish

Finish and Install, Our favorite Finishes

Natural matte finished heart pine using Bona Natural high traffic

Comparing urethane versus Oil finishes

The main distinction between urethane or an oil finish; one sits on top the other penetrates. Beyond that simple definition you get into specific products and there are too many for that exercise. Deciding which finish is best for your project depends upon several variables. Urethane finishes form a layer of protection on top of the wood surface while oils penetrate. Urethane finishes are extremely durable and are easy to clean with a dry mop and hardwood floor cleaner. However, this durability comes with a price; a urethane finish can make it hard to do spot repairs. And finally, as the urethane wear layer breaks down, the entire floor will have to be stripped & refinished. Whereas, if maintained properly an oil finished floor never needs to be stripped like a urethane finish.

Natural Oils

Oil finished floors, except Monocoat, take more time during installation and need a bit more maintenance. Most oil finishes will offer specialized soaps designed to protect the look and durability of your floor. Now for the best part, remember natural oil finishes penetrate the wood, bonding on a molecular level, meaning what? They are much easier to fix when scratched or for spot repairs. Yes, that up front time and the annual care pay off if the floor needs repair. And finally, change is so much easier with oils as stripping a floor requires harsh chemicals and much more labor.

Monocoat by Rubio

Bona High Traffic

Bona high traffic, with the Bona Craft Oil 2K topcoat, offer an amazing natural look. For an oil finish Bona dries exceptionally clean and clear with tremendous protection. Bona Craft Oil 2K has all the benefits of a natural oil finish plus the performance and innovation you expect from Bona. Bona Craft Oil is ready for light use in just 8 hours. An extremely high oil viscosity allows this product to penetrate deep into your wood, in just one coat. The Craft Oil 2K products allow to blend (or apply two colors) for a custom look. And finally, lifetime support from Bona provides reassurance that you have an expert opinion not trying to sell you something.

100% Pure Tung oil is too difficult for most people to use by itself as a finish. You apply tung oil just like linseed oil or oil/varnish blend, but you have to sand tung oil after every coat, not just after the first, and it takes five to seven coats, allowing two to three days drying time between each, to achieve a smooth, attractive sheen.

Milk Paint Tung Oil Blend

SYP Direct offers #2 Knotty Southern Yellow Knotty pine with Tung Oil finish

Blended Tung Oil with Milk Paint

One of our favorite finishes for our Southern Pine comes from Milk Paint. Milk Paints 50/50 blend of Pure Tung Oil and natural, food grade thinner. One-part Pure Tung Oil mixed to one-part Citrus Solvent. Most projects require the thick viscosity of Pure Tung Oil to be thinned for better absorption into the surface. Half & Half is the perfect ratio for projects large and small. Milk Paint has done the mixing, so you do not have to DIY.

Why blend Tung Oil?

Pure Tung Oil is too thick to penetrate most surfaces. Thinning with a natural solvent helps the oil penetrate deeper into the material. The 1 to 1 or Half & Half ratio works great all-around for most surfaces like new raw wood, butcher block countertops, cutting boards, concrete, terra cotta clay pots, stone, and slate. This finish is also food contact safe! Generally, 3 to 5 coats are needed to seal and waterproof. This all-natural finish does take 7 to 10 days to develop a water resistance and a full 30 days for a complete cure.

Bona High Traffic Natural

Load More Posts

Tung oil

Acclimation about moisture differential

Acclimation is not about time

Equilibrium floor and sub floor.

Finish to order versus Site Finished solid wood floors

Prefinished floors are created, marketed then sold; finish to order is all no choice no marketing.

Prefinished laminate hardwood floors- the words do not belong together but just go to a box store.

Marketing is not accurate information not anymore

Salvaged heart pine

Carpet is NOT King

5 Things to help you buy an eco-friendly (Green) Floor

Engineered floors are not eco-friendly

Real wood is the only green choice

Want a green finish? Moncoat by Rubio

War-anties what are they good for?

The truth about real wood

Plant a tree

Sustainable timber means green

Sustainable timber create floors that last forever

No clear cutting

Failing to clear dead trees causes wildfires

Real wood is Green

Repurpose real wood

Glue down Southern Pine

How to identify Heart Pine

Baseball, Apple Pie and Southern Pine

North Carolina

Shipping to California

Box Store Pine Floors

Dog Friendly

Prefinished or Unfinished floors?

Reclaimed or salvaged?

Salvaged Heart Pine Accent Walls

New is Reclaimed and Reclaimed is Salvaged, that is the definition of Green.

Accent Walls?

Laminate is not wood- what is it?

Laminate is not wood imported it is re-imported

Have your floors reclaimed instead of landfilled

Why Are VOCs Still Used?

The footprint of fake wood

Real is good

'Pure' on CHP

Why Are VOCs Still Used?

What are volatile organic chemicals?

Environmental Impact LVT and Laminate

Real wood is Green

Monocoat by Rubio

Natural Oils

Natural Oils

Monocoat by Rubio

Bona High Traffic

Milk Paint Tung Oil Blend

Blended Tung Oil with Milk Paint

Why blend Tung Oil?

Bona High Traffic Natural