old floor

[b_m_hart]

I have old white oak (face nailed) floors in my house - and I didn't do a very good job with matching the poly where I had to do some patching to cover up the hole for an old heater vent/register that got moved when I had a new furnace installed.  The edges just aren't terribly well transitioned to the old, and I don't expect it to be perfect, but I am curious to know what folks typically do to try to match it up.

Also, any suggestions on what to do to kill creaks?  Will nailing strategically help with it?

 

[Holzhacker]

Don't beat yourself up about not matching the poly, it's almost impossible. However there are a couple things I've done that usually work well enough. Unless I know the client and have worked for them before, I won't even do a poly patch, only the whole room for a new client. There's just too much potential to die on the job if you can't live up to expectations on the patch.
- Put furniture over the area so no one sees it. [eek] Ok, sorry.
- You don't say what finish you have, gloss, satin, semi. Coat the patch with the same Poly you think is on the floor, let it dry good and then come back and give it a 'rub' to get the finish to match the surrounding area. The idea is that the surrounding area is 'worn', therefore you need to 'wear' the finish of the patch to match. I use either superfine steel wool or those 3M thin sanding sponge things. They are like 220,240,320 Grit. Can't remember, have a few in my kit in the truck. Rub light, rub even, be patient, rub a bit, wipe the patch clean, see if it matches good, rub a little more, wipe clean, repeat as needed. This has worked out fairly well for me. Hope that helps.

 

[LostInTheWood]

The steel wool is a great tip, Holzhacker.  I've done a couple floor repairs, but have been lucky by stealing original floor from a nearby closet.  But the closet trick doesn't always work out if the repair area sees much sunlight.  Never tried this, but I heard baby powder makes squeaks go away.  Just sprinkle it in the area and brush into the joints....supposedly... :-\    I have doubts on its longevity.

 

[jmbfestool]

The steel wool is a great tip, Holzhacker.  I've done a couple floor repairs, but have been lucky by stealing original floor from a nearby closet.  But the closet trick doesn't always work out if the repair area sees much sunlight.   Never tried this, but I heard baby powder makes squeaks go away.  Just sprinkle it in the area and brush into the joints....supposedly... :-\     I have doubts on its longevity.

You say brush powered into the joints. Isn't the nails causing the creaks? The joints can also cause creaks but again due to the nails. If the wood has shrunk from when it was laid or moved the nails are not holding the floor down tight and soothe floor moves up and down the nails causing the creaks but the up and down movement can cause the joints to creak aswell.  So using a nail punch and punch all the nails down while putting downwards pressure near the nail the keep the floor down tight to the joists like standing near the area your punshing the nails.  I would say that cause solve yoour creaking problem!

Jmb

 

[LostInTheWood]

No doubt punching down the nails would fix a squeak, but there are no guarantees. I'd say works 98% of the time.    2% of the time the wood will just not hold the nail anymore.  As for the baby powder I guess the notion is that it acts like an anti-squeak dry lubricant  and  1. its easy  and  2. you won't end up with a bunch of punch marks in the finish where you punched down the nails.  Of course we are speaking of face nailed installations on strip floor.  That being said,  3. I also imagine the baby powder was intended for tongue n groove installations as it would be able to work its way down between the joints and on/around the nails. A situation where you have no access to the nail heads to punch them down.

Normally I would look for a mechanical solution such as under floor access or face screwing (ha ha) a finish screw in a floor that has a distressed look.  But if I have to use the baby powder as a last resort I'll definitely do it.  Now that I'm thinking about it I think I will put some baby powder in a small velvet bag labeled "magic dust" and nonchalantly let the homeowner see me "magically" fix the problem  [cool]