Floor sanding tips

[Christian McArdle]

The edging sander is much better when you have Victorian black gunk. Whilst a belt sander would quickly get coated in gunk, the edging sander can be used in a flicking manoevure, which blasts off the gunk without contaminating the sanding surface.

Alternatively, 150+ grade grit on a standard orbital sander is excellent for rubbing down. You can do a large room in about 3 minutes, leaving the surface lovely and smooth for the next coat.

Christian.

[Charlie]

Just finished a very hard weekend of floor sanding, here's a few tips from our experience:

1. Remove the skirting boards if you can. Otherwise whatever you do there will be a thin bit of unsanded edge.
2. Don't bother with an edging sander, use a belt sander instead to do the edges. Worked for us.
3. The drum sander has spiky bits that will happily puncture the dust bag if it doesn't hang in exactly the right place. Holes in the bag are unpatchable even with the magic of Gaffa tape, and spray sawdust everywhere. So...next time I'll get more bags.
4. The belt sanders come apart to get in the car (thanks Si!).
5. For sanding between coats of varnish, gaffa sandpaper onto an old sponge mop-onna-stick.
6. After varnishing don't use a sackbarrow to move a storage heater over the new floor, it will leave a track in your lovely new floor. Argh. Fixed now though.
7. Food tastes a little odd with added sawdust.

Charlie

[RichardS]

One point about edging sanders is watch out for disk marks!!! Go through the grades methodically... the (circular) marks are near invisible when you're in the process of sanding the floor, or admiring your work pre-finishing, but once the finish goes anywhere near them they stick out like a sore thumb....

another (manual) alternative - one of those decorator's poles with the sanding attachment.

For finishing, I applied finish (danish oil/stain mixture, then a poly) with a paint pad. Knackered the pad (dissolved the plastic attachment mechanism eventually) but then they're cheap, & the application was quick & easy, and finish was excellent.

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Christian McArdle]

I was a Diamond Hard varnish person myself. Comes from having extremely messy kids.

Christian.

[Glen]

I did two floors, the first in Bonakemi Spectra....the second in Diamond Hard. The Bonakemi floor is beautiful, the Diamond Hard is kid/dog proof! :O)

Oh, and seconded about the edge sander for black gunk floors...a necessity. That and 24grit discs was what worked for me. I rubbed down with a palm sander on 120grit.

Glen