What Is A Resin Floor Finish?

We have all heard of various companies who will install a resin floor finish to commercial or industrial flooring. However few of us are actually thoroughly in the know of what it is exactly.

A resin floor finish used to be around long before we even were aware of resins, because Mother Nature has created resins for eons. Look at perhaps a maple tree or many pine trees and you will see Mother Nature’s resins, for it is very simply sap. Now looking away from Mother Nature’s sap or resin, let’s consider a different form of resin, namely synthetic resin. Synthetic means that it is man-made of course.

However, before moving on to synthetic resins, consider the Mother Nature type once more, and think how she presents her resin. It leaks or comes out of the bark as a viscous compound, and what it eventually does is harden and then harden some more. How hard can it get? Well, consider amber which is actually fossilized plant resin. Thus the ultimate answer is that it can get so hard as to become extremely inflexible even though it comes from a viscous producing plant.

Synthetic resins are of course man made as evinced earlier, but it is important to realize that it is manufactured. Before the polymerization process is complete, it begins just as Mother Nature’s resin did, and it is a viscous compound. However what finally happens is that it will set and get hard. That process has the tongue twisting name of polymerization.

If you think about it, synthetic resins are exactly what have been applied to the table tops found in many restaurants as well as bars. You know the ones that have a very bright shine to them, and perhaps have some sort of coins or other interesting objects encased in the shiny plastic? Often the coins or whatever, are so deeply encased in the plastic that one realizes that they are actually trapped inches deep in the synthetic resin. And you know how hard, seamless and durable those table tops are, right? It is quite obvious that at some point prior to the polymerization process being complete, they inserted the coins into the resin.

Similarly to the table topping, a Silikal resin floor finish is seamless and stands out among other flooring options.