The Queen walked on WOCA oiled flooring
The Eurostar is a train of up-to-date design and performance. It competes well with any of the airlines uniting Europe. So its new St Pancras International Terminal was built in luxurious fashion comparable to airport standards.
For the flooring in the Eurostar departure and arrival halls, the 800-million-pound project used approximately 6, 000sqm of FSC accredited solid Jatoba wood flooring which is quite likely to be the largest, single space, solid wood flooring installation in the UK in 2007.
The architects chose to use surface treatments and maintenance products manufactured and supplied by WOCA in Denmark. The project thereby also sets a new quality standard for wood floor finishing in Europe.
On November 6th, 2007, Her Majesty the Queen opened the new St Pancras International Terminal in London. Queen Elisabeth II. Highlighted the importance of attention to detail and the quality of the completed terminal through which millions of people are expected to pass each year.
WOCA’s contribution
WOCA Denmark (known in Denmark as Trip Trap) is one of the world’s leading suppliers of real wood flooring treatment and maintenance products, in particular for heavy traffic projects such as St Pancras International. Before WOCA became the surface finish supplier, the architect team visited Copenhagen Airport with the design team, where a similar floor has been in service for nearly two decades, and which has been treated with the WOCA oxidising oils, and has been since maintained successfully using a variety of WOCA maintenance products, speciality chosen to meet the arduous traffic conditions.
WOCA UK, with the support from its Danish technical teams, and the UK oiled floor treatment specialists worked with the experience from Copenhagen Airport, and formulated an oil treatment and protection, and maintenance procedures for meeting the needs of the St Pancras project.
Surface treatment at St Pancras
After the solid FSC Jatoba solid wood floor had been machined to the customers exact specifications, and fitted. The ladder bordered patterned floor was belt sanded with 100 grit abrasion. The cross beams were then hand abraded to eliminate sanding marks and to achieve the fine finish required on the cross beams. Then two coats of High Solid natural WOCA Master Oil were applied, and finished off with the final coat of WOCA Maintenance Oil. The high quality finish demanded on this prestigious project required the development of a unique oiling and buffering technique using Dane Care special discs on the 2nd and 3rd wet coat to produce the fine, hard wearing quality finish.
Inevitably there were several weeks between the final floor finishing work and the opening date, and given that other trades were on the floor until the last minute, a complete re-oiling became necessary to achieve a perfect finish. So another WOCA innovation was introduced, which is the unique WOCA oil refresher product, applied the same way as traditional wood floor WOCA master soap, but having a two in one ability to remove the dirt from the surface and at the same both restore the floors natural appearance and ensure the appropriate protection.
The team was able to hand over the completed Jatoba flooring, dust free and in perfect condition in time for the Queen’s arrival. According to the WOCA team it was tremendous to see and hear her majesty confirm in her speech, how impressed she was with the attention to detail, after she saw and walked around the completed new St Pancras International terminal.
WOCA Denmark, of course, has also developed the future maintenance procedures for the project. With the use of the WOCA formula, the railway station floor will be perfectly maintained and remain in good condition and appearance for decades to come.
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