Lines and streaks in tung oil finish

Q: We have an old home that needed new floors. We decided to put down pine, wide plank floors. They are very beautiful, but the manufacturer had us use tung oil on them. Through the process I found out there were two types of oil: one goes on first and one goes second. Well, by that point, we had started putting the second one on before we had two coats of the first. We then just had to go with what we had done.

The problem I have now is that the floors are uneven in color and you can see lines and streaks in the floor. Not to mention they are impossible to keep looking clean. You can see every footprint and so on. What can we do?

I would like to try and go with urethane. We have been told we can put it over what we have. I am scared to death to make a move and ruin them more, or worse.

These floors took well over half of our budget and they look terrible.

A: I would have someone come in, polish them with a fine abrasive and apply a couple of coats of polyurethane. Tung oil, in and of itself, isn’t a practical finish for a floor. If you had used Waterlox which has tung oil as one of the 5 main ingredients you would have had much better results.