How did they make the glossy floors of 1930s sets?
In many of the extravaganza films of the 1930s like "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Thief of Baghdad" there are elaborate sets with smooth, glossy floors. These floors look somewhat like modern epoxy floors, like you would find in a high end auto showroom. However, obviously epoxy did not exist in the 1930s, so how did they make these floors in the Golden Age of Hollywood?
Best Answer
I actually figured out the answer to this question eventually.
The magical mystery technique is bakelite sheeting.
The way it works is that the set designer could buy large sheets of fabric which were impregnated with bakelite. You would unroll the sheets on the wooden planking of the studio floor, then the seams can be eliminated just by using an iron to heat the sheeting. This creates a large continuous floor which is very hard, flat, waterproof and glossy.
The main drawback was that dark colors had to be used because otherwise the pattern of the fabric substrate could be seen through the plastic which is translucent.
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