Tackling Worn Varnish

[Blue70]

Virtually all of my downstairs flooring is the original 1930s floorboards, I believe that it's redwood?

The summer before last I sanded them all and covered with 4 coats of Ronseal Diamond Hard Floor Varnish.

Within 6 months or so there was very noticeable wear in high traffic areas Eg Route from living room to Kitchen and area in front of the sofa. Not particularly high traffic but these areas are walked on more than the rest.
Obviously I wasn't very impressed with this particular Ronseal product.

Anyway having waded through a number of more important jobs I am looking to rectify this problem fairly soon.

A lot of the high traffic, durable products that I have looked at, both water based and the two part systems, state that you should/must strip your boards back to bare wood.

I would like to avoid doing that if at all possible so my question is can anyone recommend a durable (possibly commercial) varnish that I can apply over the top of the existing Ronseal and only have to lightly sand the existing surface (and clean etc) beforehand.

Any recommendations & advice greatly received .......

 

[Blue70]

Bump

 

[SidJakobson]

The only real option you have is to sand the existing varnish down.

You may be able to get away with a 120 grit light sand. (Could use a buffer with a 120 mesh)

As for possible products, I would recommend a polyurethane based lacquer, Bona Traffic comes to mind.

 

[geraldthehamster]

I've used Ronseal Mattcoat varnish on floors (and everything else) for years. It's a solvent-based polyeurethane varnish, doesn't say it's for floors but lasts really well.

However, if you've already used water-based varnish, you would need to remove it all first, because otherwise you'd get colour variations, where the solvent-based varnish penetrates the bare wood where the water based has worn off.

I can't think of a solution that doesn't involve removing all the existing varnish, apart from retouching with more of the same.

Cheers
Richard