Sanding down hardwood floors

[Bill Allison]

Got my 150 FEQ and have done some small projects but I'm really a novice at woodworking.  Have a small area in my kitchen that has oak hardwood floors and needs refinishing after 24 years of use.  My dilema is, does the FEQ work up to tight spots well?  Also have any of you used a finish that dries fast.  My wife will want to be in the kitchen soon after I'm done and therefore I need something that dries fast.  Also it is the entrance/exit into the garage.

 

[Tim Sproul]

Got my 150 FEQ and have done some small projects but I'm really a novice at woodworking.  Have a small area in my kitchen that has oak hardwood floors and needs refinishing after 24 years of use.  My dilema is, does the FEQ work up to tight spots well?  Also have any of you used a finish that dries fast.  My wife will want to be in the kitchen soon after I'm done and therefore I need something that dries fast.  Also it is the entrance/exit into the garage.

Be careful close to edges.  If you can remove the baseboard and then reinstall, that is best.  Get good knee pads.  Have good ear protection.  Until you get to bare wood, move the sander fairly quickly over the floor.  I'm assuming you've got a polyurethane finish on the floor already.  Polyurethanes and most floor finishes tend to get gummy/sticky when they get hot....which will clog the abrasive.  Moving the sander around at a decent clip will help prevent the finish from getting hot and gummy/sticky.

water-based polyurethane is probably a good compromise for a durable but fast drying floor finish.

After the finish has dried for an hour or so, I'd point a box fan or similar over that area and let it run overnight.  Then let the family in to walk all over it.  If it is humid, you might want to add a day (finish the floor in the morning, put the fan on and don't let anyone walk on it until the next day).

 

[jaegerhund]

I've used Bonakemi products ----- Mega I believe --- fast drying and has held up well.  I'm not sure if water-based products are the best for a "wet" area like a kitchen --- maybe someone can pipe in about this.  I think most water-based urethanes take around a week or so to completely cure but can handle light foot traffic within a few days ------ all of this depends on weather conditions of course with I think water-based products being somewhat sensitive to relative humidity. 

One nice approach is to sand well (to 120 grit or so) --- color the wood if you want to ---- put down a couple of coats of dewaxed shellac like Zinsser's Sealcoat --- and put down three coats of the urethane.  Urethanes do not adhere well to impurities like wax, silicone, previous coats of urethane, etc so the Sealcoat (in this case 100% dewaxed shellac) can really help with adhesion.

Anyway this has worked for me ----- but just one way.

Justin

Edit:  Tim's suggestion of using fans is spot on --- anything to decrease the humidity (if you need to).  In Louisiana humidity is always a b**ch but the high temps help --- a cold humid winter day is the worse.

 

[Bill Allison]

Fortunately we live in a pretty dry climate.  Eastern Washington is usually hot and dry in the summer.  My biggest problem is we aren't going to be able to be in the kitchen for a day or so it looks like.  Guess we'll just have to just avoid the kitchen.  I've got some pretty tight spots and wondered if the FEQ can get down to the tight spots/corners.  What would be a good tool for these areas.  I've seen other sanders made by Festool but this project would be the only time I'd use a smaller sander .... I think?

 

[jaegerhund]

A scraper (paint scraper or card scraper) can help you get into the corners --- if you can remove the base board, quarter round, or whatever, this helps also.  Follow the scraper up with some light hand sanding.  Make sure if you use a scraper to go parallel to grain --- not across it to avoid  tear outs.  Your sander should be able to get close enough except in the corners. 

Justin

 

[greg mann]

I just finished a 10 by 25 ft floor using the Rotex. Taking the molding off is really the way to go. You might have a mismatch from prior sanding done with molding left on. I did have that condition and I used an RAS115 to remove a step of about 1/32. The benefit to removing the molding, beside getting a better job, is that you now can get further into the corners with the Rotex. Don't be afraid to use the machine in the rotary mode to get the finish off and the floor flat. It will be much faster than random orbit mode. I had deep scratches and some cupping to remove and started with 40 grit Cristal. I used rotary mode through 40, 60, 80 grit Cristal folowed by 80, 120 and 150 Rubin in random mode. Skipped 100 because I didn't have it. I knocked down the base coat and the first poly coat with 180 and 240 brilliant, respectively. Not saying this is the best but it sure made the Sweetie happy. It still helps to use an rectangular sander in the corners, no doubt, but you can get by without it with the scraper, depending on how much sanding you really need to do.

A waterborne finish is pretty fast but all the advice given is spot on. Side benefits are easy clean up and almost no fumes. These finishes are more water resistant than one would think. Check out Jerry Work's tutorial on Target Coatings. He did not cover floors but there is a lot of useful info there.

 

[merklebob]

my son and i just finished a 1200 ft house in eastern washing ton [moses lake] and took the old finisn totally off.  we used the flecto water based finish and put 3 coat on in one day.  let sit over nite and be carefull for the next two days.  we use 24 grid and worked down to 220.  most people stop at 120 on floors but when i did that you could see swirel marks[from a non featool sander].

get the floor applicator for putting down the varnish.  it looks like a smaller dia paint roller with a slit in it.  the applicator slide on a steel rod[fro weigth] and attached to a panit roller rod.  pour a good amout of varnish on the floor[across the full length]  and use the applicator at a 30-45 angle to move tha varnish across the floor.

 

[Loren Woirhaye]

You can get a nice "floor scraper" from Lee Valley tools.  In
the days before electric sanders hardwood floors were
scraped by hand.

How you handle a hardwood floor depends on how much
finish you want to take off.  A floor buffer with sanding
screens works well for many jobs.  It's a slow way to go down
to bare wood though.

In that case you'll be using a rented floor-sander of the
belt variety I think.  Horrible tool but it does the job.  You
can rent a specialized disk sander for the edge - another
horrible (and heavy) tool that does it's job well.  leaving
a lot of sanding marks which you'll have to scrape or
sand put anyway.

If it was me I would only use the Festool sanders to
clean up the rough spots.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Bill,
Sorry for getting to this discussion a bit late!  I actually have used the Rotex RO 150 to refinish an old floor in my house.  It was a relatively small area, with fir flooring.  The process went fairly well.
I documented the whole thing in a tool review, which you can find by CLICKING HERE.
Matthew