Advice on sanding floorboards

[PJ]

The sanding belts provided are 60, 80 and 120 grit. The floor looks fine after using the 60 grit belt. It is smooth and looks good after using the 60 grit belt. What is the advantage of / necessity for the other grades of belt. What improvement might be achieved?

[stuart noble]

It always looks fine until it's varnished, whereupon every little imperfection will show, and you'll see the sander marks when the light catches it. It's tempting to save time, and the cost of the extra abrasive, but going through the 3 grades makes a hell of a difference to the end result. For the relatively short time the extra passes take, it's well worth going the extra mile.

[PJ]

Thanks Stuart for the clear and sensible reply. I will certainly accept your advice. PJ

[Spamlet]

The grades are for getting at different depths of scratches. If your boards were fairly well made and new you might even have got away with the finer grades on their own. But with most worn and torn or varnished surfaces, you are basically 'levelling the playing field' with the coarser grades, and then reducing the now more evenly scratched surface to a finer and finer level as you go down through the grades - and could go on until you actually had a polished finish, though it would soon be scratched again so decent floor varnish is better.

One thing to watch out for: If you have shaved the tops of any nails and/or want to bang them in further, do check to see if there might be any pipes or wires just a little bit further down. I had to help redo a floor twice after it turned out a nail had already got perilously close to a ch pipe and only needed one more tap...

S

[PJ]

Thank you for the clarity of your explanation. It is always helpful to know the reason behind the action to be taken.

Fortuitously, the boards are on a concrete base on the ground floor with no subfloor wiring or piping.

Thanks again. PJ

[Spamlet]

That's good: a nice firm surface should come up a treat.

S