A bit off base but…
Anybody ever try to refininsh hardwood floors with a sander and power pads!
Just bought a new houe and the floors are in poor shape. Don’t feel like shelling out the money for a “pro” to do it.
Drew
…hey Drew, belt sander is better…
Thanks for the response
yeah, yeah grain and all.
But don’t the "pros use large circular sanders? You know the huge floor bufffing machines. I figured that a sander with a power pad is a slightyl smaller version of it
Drew
…yes, i know of that sanders; but a carpenter friend of mine do the work with a belt sander,first “fill” the spaces, then tint, then “laminate” them with a good brush, then polish…
No they’re not circular sanders like those buffing machines. They’r just large belt sanders. Any place that rents them will carry the sanding belts.
I did the hall and three bedrooms, my neighbor did part of his house, a pal did it all. You’ll only do it once, before you realize the pros cost real money, but will deliver real results. My house is 70-odd years old, with fir bedroom and hallway floors that were covered with carpet that eventually got filthy. Out went the carpet and pad to find what could be a nice wood floor below.
I rented a big disk sander for several days, and watched friend 2 with the belt. The belt takes down too much, I only wanted to skim off the old finish and lay new. I used mostly 60 and 100 grit.
Some things I learned:
One, the big disc will run away and crash into a wall if you don’t have it well balanced. If it’s balanced, floor sanding is almost a one-hand job. You’ll learn to use the tool.
Two, it makes a god-awful amount of dust, wear a respirator, completely clear the room, seal the room (makes it hot), and plan on vacuuming the floors, walls and ceilings after.
Three: there are all sorts of products out there, but chiefly polyurethane, alkyd, and epoxy. Some are soap and water cleanable, some require a solvent. I can’t tell you what’s best. However, I used an inexpensive water-borne product and was a little disappointed. I used it because it didn’t require sanding between coats, as long as you put the next coat on after about four hours. Well, my coats didn’t dry for longer than that, so after sanding all day I got very little sleep that night, putting on three coats. The surface took weeks to dry “hard”. The total job is softer than I’d like, because (I think) the underlying wood was only fir (relatively soft) to begin with, and the coating I applied was a little on the soft side. Possibly I put too much on.
Four: You have to really really really get up the dust and loose crap before you put the coating on. I though I did, but I have zits and hairs in numbers I don’t like to think about. The glossy finish I tried to achieve accentuates these.
Five: The applicator is like a 30-inch wide, felt strip. The water based product cleaned from it nicely, but you don’t brush the stuff on, rather you pour a large amount on the floor and squeegee it around as if you were cleaning a window. Yeah, it’s like squeegee work on a board, but you only sweep past a given area once.
Six: my entry hallway runs down to a window, so there’s always a reflection from the floor, and it shows every dust kitty, hair and little bit of crap on the shiny finish. Kind of like having a black car, dust/dirt is always too visible. If I could motivate the wifely unit, I’d be a made man.
Seven: you want to watch a pro first, to get the hang of the process, understand the use of the tools, and get some “real” advice about what product to use.
Last: this is not a job for hand tools except along edges and corners. The rental place will have what you need.
I have oak floors in the living room and dining room. One is nice, the other has weathered and needs to be re-done. I will not use the same product again, but I expect a better result anyway since the oak is very hard.
Looks like this went on a bit more than I expected, but there’s a lot to be learned. There are electronic groups (like Swaylocks) that address floor finishing. You’ll find them.
Honolulu
Thanks for the advice. Definitely not the place for a thread like this, but since we all have the tools, I’d take a stab.
Got an esttimate this afternoon for 2 rooms…$800… DANG
Drew
floor refinishers use drum sanders
Hi Drew,
Honolulu nailed it, maybe I can add a little- used to moonlight doing oak floors.
First off- and I couldn’t give you a really intelligent answer without seeing the floor - might be just the old finish that looks like hell, might be more. That governs what you use to refinish it- if it’s truly munged, you want to hit it with a 220V drum sander, not a disc, to eat away that top 1/8" or so.
Rental tools, definitely the way to go, unless you have a near infinite amount of free time.
Though considering what they get for industrial floor sanders per day, if it takes you any great amount of time then having it done might not be a bad move. Plus, they won’t be learning on your floor. Put it this way, I used to job out the sanding and finishing to a specialist crew rather than doing it myself.
If you have a compressor and a good shop vac with good filters, use 'em to get all the dust and such smeg off everything before you put down finish. You want plastic and good grade masking tape to seal off adjoining rooms that can do without dust is good, also mounting a strong fan in one window to blow the dust out. Not, by the way, to blow air in - that’ll just push dust everywhere. A window opened on the opposite side will take care of that.
Also, dump the dust bags before they get half full on the rental machines and check the filters on the shop-vac - blow-by is miserable…
Hearing protection is a good idea, but you do want to hear the different sound if your sandpaper is loading up, etc. Change that fairly often - burning the old finish deep into the wood with dull paper isn’t a great idea.
Like sanding hotcoats - do long sweeps, not spot sanding.
Stains in oak- many (but not all) can be bleached out with an oxalic acid solution, especially the iron stains you get around old radiators, etc.
You want to get some tack rags for getting that last little bit of dust and smeg off. That’s a rag with a little almost completely dry turps on it, so that it’ll cause the dust to stick to the rag. Mineral spirits paint thinner may work too- in either case, don’t store the rags indoors after use, they can spontaneously combust.
Once you have hit it with the tack rags, change to dust-free clothes and clean socks, no shoes.
Lay on polyurethane - Zar brand used to be pretty good: I like a wide brush, but I’m old fashioned. I think it works the stuff into the pores in the wood better than rollers or those damned sponge things.
Use your respirator and organic vapor cartridges - nasty fumes from the good urethanes. I have no use for the water-base floor finishes whatsoever.
My personal favorite is a drying oil finish like tung oil or boiled linseed oil, followed by lots of regularly applied paste wax, but that’s for those with a cleaning crew available, not the likes of you and me.
Oh, and that is several coats of finish, not just one. I’d call three coats minimum. Yes, it takes longer and costs more, but the first time somebody moves a table and it scratches through…
aghhhh - my floors are due for some work, dammit… but after all this, it won’t be right away.
hope that’s of use
doc…
Rent a professional floor sander from Home Depot. They are cheap and will save you countless hours. Not to mention that your floof will be level.
$800 for two rooms, to me, would be money well spent. People charge 3 times that around here.
I’ve done it both ways - combo of 3" belt sander & 5" random-orbit and also the rentals of the heavy drum sander + circ. sander for edging. Neither is much fun. If I had to do it over again, I’d go with the rentals, but skip the most aggressive papers. I made some gouges setting the thing in place that you could lay a hot dog in. Can you say rearrange the furniture?
The small carpenter-type power tools took abysmally long and the bearings in my nice Porter Cable RO haven’t sounded the same since. $800? Heck yeah. Make a couple simple longboards & sell 'em on Craigslist to make the money back. Or better yet, maybe a floor guy wants a surfbooard…
Its kind of like doing your own oil changes. Sure, anyone with a wrench can do it, but when the jiffy guy only wants $25 for the job and you can sit in your car & listen to the raido? Eff it. Pay the guy & move on. (And anyone who knows me, knows this is a rare sentiment - but for floors, yeah.)
Right on!
Looks like it’s $800 bucks out of my poccket. With the free time I can make a few boards, sell em and break even.
Almost.
Drew