I've just done my third polished floor- and I'm still making mistakes.
They've all been in my block of 1BR units so far- and the improvement from before has been dramatic- but I would not have done a job like this on a top quality place.
Original floor- with sander and edger shown.
This is in a unit where the carpet had been on top of this part of the floor. The picture makes it look not to bad- but-
.the varnish was very old
.the exposed parts of the floor were very damaged
(the walls were freshly painted at that stage)
After the drum sander had done some of its job.
I made two big mistakes here.
1. I sanded across the grain. The score marks showed- and they would have been better going with the grain (ie. parallell with the floorboards, not at right angles)
2. The floor was laready fairly level- but I started sanding with the coarsest grain sandpaper ("P40")- which was not only rough- it was brittle. I went through 5 sheets sanding just half the floor in one room (at $5 a pop, al of them just broken)- before being completely successful at the next grade ("p80") and not breaking any of them. $30 more than I needed to spend!
After it was finished.
Some points here.
The books say hat there should be three coats of polyurethane, with a sand between each coat.
I concur.
First, you do need to make sure that the floors are absolutely clean, and free of dust. That's a big ask when you've just had this dust generating monster.
Second. If there's any speck of dust whcih does show up, the (light) sanding frequently does get rid of it.
There are two sorts of polyurethane out there- satin and gloss. Satin is more forgiving- obviously not as shiny- but it takes 12 hours to dry, vs about 6 hours for the gloss. This can make a huge difference on a tight time budget when there's tenants moving in shortly!
BTW, the ig drum sander is easy to operate. The edger requires a lot of muscle power- all the force is horizonatl, whereas the drum sander has mostly vertical force.
Cost of hire was about $100 for the tow for an overnight (= 4 hour)- sanding sheets can cost $25 to $50 extra.
They've all been in my block of 1BR units so far- and the improvement from before has been dramatic- but I would not have done a job like this on a top quality place.
Original floor- with sander and edger shown.
This is in a unit where the carpet had been on top of this part of the floor. The picture makes it look not to bad- but-
.the varnish was very old
.the exposed parts of the floor were very damaged
(the walls were freshly painted at that stage)
After the drum sander had done some of its job.
I made two big mistakes here.
1. I sanded across the grain. The score marks showed- and they would have been better going with the grain (ie. parallell with the floorboards, not at right angles)
2. The floor was laready fairly level- but I started sanding with the coarsest grain sandpaper ("P40")- which was not only rough- it was brittle. I went through 5 sheets sanding just half the floor in one room (at $5 a pop, al of them just broken)- before being completely successful at the next grade ("p80") and not breaking any of them. $30 more than I needed to spend!
After it was finished.
Some points here.
The books say hat there should be three coats of polyurethane, with a sand between each coat.
I concur.
First, you do need to make sure that the floors are absolutely clean, and free of dust. That's a big ask when you've just had this dust generating monster.
Second. If there's any speck of dust whcih does show up, the (light) sanding frequently does get rid of it.
There are two sorts of polyurethane out there- satin and gloss. Satin is more forgiving- obviously not as shiny- but it takes 12 hours to dry, vs about 6 hours for the gloss. This can make a huge difference on a tight time budget when there's tenants moving in shortly!
BTW, the ig drum sander is easy to operate. The edger requires a lot of muscle power- all the force is horizonatl, whereas the drum sander has mostly vertical force.
Cost of hire was about $100 for the tow for an overnight (= 4 hour)- sanding sheets can cost $25 to $50 extra.
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