In the late 1970s — while finishing
my final two years of high school —
I spent my summers, weekends and
evenings working at a local building
supply and construction company
preparing preliminary design drawings
for the cedar homes the company's
clients were building.
It was a formative and exciting time
for a young man so new to the industry,
and I quickly came to learn that the industry
was built more on strange characters
and quirky personalities than it was
with two-by-fours and plywood.
Although the flow of questionable
builders, developers with ultra-thin financing,
and homeowners burdened by
18-per-cent mortgages were a regular
part of the daily traffic, there was one
day when a peculiar man walked into the
office unannounced, carrying an armful
of paint cans with odd names like
Schroojesbijts, Buitenbijts, and Cetol.
The fellow's name was Mark Virsunen,
and besides being of obvious
Scandinavian descent, he also sported a
gold earring and pony tail that should
have made me immediately realize that
he was well ahead of his time.
As it turned out, Mark was peddling
Sikkens wood finishes from Holland,
land of the wooden shoe. At the time,
Sikkens was the best-selling brand of
wood finish in Europe. However, if a
client Mark called on wasn't interested
in Sikkens, Mark would present his other
overseas line: hockey sticks. I believe
the stick brand was "Koho", but don't
quote me on that as my memory's a bit
murky due to the time that has passed.
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Sikkens wood finishes were very
unique. They were more expensive than
the venerable North American brands of
the day like Olympic, but possessed proprietary
pigment technology that made
them look much richer and clearer than
rudimentary semi-transparent stains. In
short order, Sikkens began to steal market
share. Sikkens' parent company, Akzo,
bought their number one European competitor, Nobel, to form Akzo/Nobel,
the world's largest coating company.
In Canada, the distribution of
Sikkens by Chateau Paints in Quebec
and Dutch Coating Systems (Mark's original
company) in Ontario morphed into
distribution by Sico Paints and Para
Paints respectively, with Sico eventually
buying Para two years ago. Then, just a
few months back, Sikkens (Akzo/Nobel)
completed the circle by swallowing up
publicly-traded Sico. Apparently, they're
now one big happy family.
In the shadow of all of that heavyweight
market manoeuvreing, one of
Mark's original right hand men, Kevin
McGeown, has quietly gone about the
small-scale business of hunting down
and staying on the leading edge of wood
finish technology. His quest has been to
find a coating that combines the best of
transparent pigment with the user and
environmental benefits of waterborne,
acrylic resin. It's also an area where
Sikkens hasn't yet shown great interest
or taken a leadership role in.
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Very recently, Kevin introduced exactly
that kind of product. Coming to market
under the name of WoodPlus, it is
manufactured by his company, WoodPlus Coatings of Pickering, Ont. WoodPlus is formulated with the most advanced European resins and, as a result,
it protects wood surfaces with a breathable,
flexible film that is very resistant to
"yellowing" caused by UV exposure.
Plus, being water based it's naturally
VOC compliant. Unlike oil-and-resin
based exterior wood coatings, acrylics
offer the potential to resist peeling, a
condition that can occur when an oilbased
coating has been poorly maintained
or improperly applied.
WoodPlus is a suitable for virtually all
types of exterior wood surfaces and, if a
homeowner desires, is a viable option for
interior surfaces when low odours,
quick drying and ease of cleanup are important.
It appears that WoodPlus will be the
go-to coating for homeowners who want
to protect their valuable wood surfaces
in the best way they can, and that Kevin
has gotten out on the leading edge of the
wood finish technology wave. From my
perspective, WoodPlus is sure to be a big
winner in the marketplace.
In the earliest days of Canadian history,
wood finishes were crude and imprecise
mixtures of linseed oil, earth pigments
and turpentine. Europeans, and
the Dutch in particular, focused on the
development of synthetic resins and ultra-clear colour pigments to produce
coatings with superior life expectancy
and vastly improved clarity. It was inevitable
that these coatings would immigrate
to Canada, a country with huge
wood resources and a desire to preserve
their beauty.
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