Free Timber Coatings Workshops for UK Architects
A free, hands on hour on timber coatings, run at your practice, anywhere in the UK. Led by Fiona Fang of Oslek Coatings and Aaron Smith of The Floor Gallery. Everyone leaves with sample boards they coated and cured themselves.
- 1 hourSession length
- FreeNo cost to attend
- Your officeAnywhere in the UK
- Any sizeNo minimum or maximum
Why we run these
Finishes get specified far more often than they get applied. Most architects will write a coating into a specification many times over a career without ever having put one on a board, which makes it hard to judge what the differences between them really mean on site.
So we bring the materials to you. An hour, around a table, covering how timber coatings work and why the industry is moving away from solvents, then finishing some boards by hand to see it happen.
What the session covers
What are timber coatings, and what are the different types?
A plain English tour of the main coating families, what each one is actually doing to the timber, and where each belongs. Useful background for anyone who writes finishes into a specification without having applied one.
What are VOCs, and why are they often found in timber coatings?
Why solvents ended up in so many coatings in the first place, what that means for indoor air quality and site conditions, and how to read what a technical data sheet is telling you. We cover this in more depth in Clearing the air on VOCs.
What is energy curing, and how is it used in the coatings industry?
How light cured coatings work, where the technology came from, and why a floor can be walked on the moment the lamp passes over it rather than days later. Background reading: the difference between UV and LED curing and the real cost of slow drying coatings.
The hands on part
The teaching takes about half the hour. The rest is spent finishing timber.
Everyone gets an unfinished plank from The Floor Gallery Winderen collection, a European oak engineered board that would normally arrive on site already finished. You coat it with Oslek LED Hardwax Oil, then cure it under a handheld LED lamp and watch it harden in seconds rather than days. The board is dry to the touch and ready to handle before it leaves your hand.
That moment tends to be the one people remember, and it is the reason we would rather do this in person than send a brochure.
Who it is for
- Architects and specifiers who write finishes into schedules and want to understand what they are choosing between.
- Interior designers working with timber where colour, sheen and feel matter as much as durability.
- Practice teams as a whole. The session works just as well for a studio of twenty as for three people around a table.
If you would like to see the finish in situ first, our project case studies show completed retail and residential work.
The paperwork, if you are specifying
Most of the hour is hands on, but a specifier needs documents afterwards. They are all on the site rather than behind a request form, and we bring the reports to the session.
- EN 71-3 toy safety. Tested at Category III by Eurofins Product Testing, the scraped-off coating category, and none of the nineteen regulated elements was detected. We have set out what the test covers, and what it does not, on is hardwax oil safe for children and pets.
- Slip resistance. AS 4586 wet pendulum, NATA accredited, slip resistance value 36 on a coated 15mm engineered oak plank. That test uses the same British Pendulum apparatus BS 7976 uses here, so the number is readable in a UK specification.
- VOC content. 6.4 grams per litre, against a legal ceiling of 500 for this category of coating in Great Britain. What that figure actually means sets out the regulations and why the number is already printed on every tin.
There is a fire test as well, to AS ISO 9239.1, and we will talk you through it honestly. The critical radiant flux result clears the Cfl threshold, but a Euroclass also needs an ignitability test that has not been done, so there is no classification to put in a specification yet. We would rather say that in a meeting than let you find it later.
Frequently asked questions
Does the session count towards CPD?
The workshop is structured as technical education and practices commonly record it against their own CPD. It is not currently a RIBA approved CPD seminar, so we would not describe it as accredited.
How many people can attend?
There is no minimum or maximum. We have run sessions for a handful of people around a table and for a full studio. Tell us roughly how many to expect and we will bring enough materials.
Is there really no cost?
None. We do not charge for the session, the materials or the travel.
Do we need to prepare anything?
A table and about an hour. We bring the boards, the coatings, the lamps and the safety glasses.
What do we get to keep?
The samples you coat and cure yourself. They are genuine finished pieces of engineered oak, which makes them useful to keep on a shelf and hand to clients.
Can you cover a live project?
Yes. If you have a specification in progress, tell us in advance and we will work your finish into the session.
Can we have the test reports?
Yes, and you do not need to ask. The EN 71-3, slip resistance and fire test reports are all downloadable from the product page. We bring printed copies to the session too.
Book a workshop
Sessions run throughout the year and are booked directly with Fiona at Oslek Coatings or Aaron at The Floor Gallery. Tell us where you are and roughly how many people to expect.
Request a sessionsales@oslekcoatings.co.uk