The old canvas Stage Cloths can be a drama David!
A lot of venues use the oil tempered Masonite sheets, over the T&G floor boards, which tek screwed down. With the idea of they can be easily replaced if any sheet is damaged. Invariably when they were first installed they choose to cut the Masonite so the sheets are square. which looses the advantage of just replacement of a standard off the shelf sheet. I agree Masonite can be a pain & it does tend to delaminate easily. I have worked a few shows, where touring companies have used painted Masonite floor plates. Invariably they are cracked & broken off corners they attempt to patch up.
We put down MDF for our inaugural show of Stepping Out & it remained there for a number of years, until we removed the sheets upon the refurbishment of the venue. The only real hicup with MDF will suck up any moisture in the air over night. The joints between the adjoining sheets Will buckle up slightly, However once the lighting rig is struck up they shrink back to their normal position. But one thing the sheeting does, is give an easy flush surface area to paint. We needed to paint it black quickly, so Hywell, Taureen & myself bought a couple of domestic kitchen 'Squeeze- Gee' mops, which worked great. In fact there was no spray you get from using rollers & we used less paint. The ability to squeeze out the access paint before tapping saved all that mess & drama, normally associated with rollers. Cleaning the pads was a breeze & the replacement pads are so cheap, if someone forgets to clean them.
Also with using the black I get the paint shop to add 'cobalt blue' tint to the paint mix. It normally works out one shot of tint per 2 Litres , about 4 to 5 per gallon. { the blue show mode work light back stage, works well with the blue tint as well!} One of the problems with Black is with wear, scuffing, washing & dragging sets over the floor. The wear areas tend to turn to a brownish pigment. The Cobalt Blue colours out the brown to be less noticeable. This does also help & extend the period before having to repaint, also by adding PVA wood glue to the paint, which is white but it drys clear. This gives a very hard wearing deck surface. Again with using the replaceable squeeze mops, you can just replace the mop pad. Under tapping the sheets is easy but it does take two to roll out the gaffer tape & slide the tape [sticky side up] under one sheet, then lay the next sheet down on the the protruding half of the tapes sticky side. Then walk along the sheets joints will ensure the tape adhering under neath.