Raising dents in wood block floor

[Chris Bacon]

Why? As far as I know a drum sander is the proper tool for the job.

[Thomas Prufer]

If its not too large a spot, the water will soak in sideways, and lift the finish.

Dab water, soak, steam, wait, ...

As time usually translates into labor costs: get someone in to sand the lot.

Alternatively, DIY, where time is "free".

Anyway: grab a block of scrap, and beat the sh*it out of it with a hammer. Then steam and soak the dents back out. A wet rag left on the block for a few days, followed by drying for a week -- that will get rid of all the dents IME, bar the ones where the edge or corner of a hammer tore fibers.

Nice. Oak is stubborn, too!

I'm certain of the "frog" technique. ISTR there are special punches with softly rounded tips for denting the wood. Can't finde a trace of it on this Internet thing, tho... ah, here at last: "ukibori".

"Wood Ukibori Techniques "The technique for wood goes like this: using a hard punch with a very smooth rounded end, the wood is depressed a small amount beneath the surface. This often requires a firm tap with a mallet. The surface is then carved down level with the bottom of the depression formed by the punch, and the area of the depression was wetted with boiling water (use a small brush)."

(from "Carving Netsuke" by Tom Sterling

)

Thomas Prufer

[newshound]

I like the sound of that, especially with the spot treatment.

[Tim Lamb]

In message [e-mail], Thomas Prufer [e-mail]> writes

The finish was achieved by scraping (carefully) with bits of broken glass!

Current project is a garden Pergola for the boss.

[nothanks]

Using a drum sander is fine for floorboards but can lead to dishing and/or scratching on parquet floors.

[Chris Bacon]

Well, I have never seen anyone use those for sanding. It's normally a drum sander, run in different directions, making a flat surface. If the operator's incompetent, I should think anything could happen.

[nothanks]

You now have one less unknown unknowns ;-) More seriously: I guess it's horses for courses - or sanders for floors. The orbital sanders give a far better result on floors that have the grain running in different directions. Here's a photo of one of my refinished floors:

[invalid unparseable]

A friend of mine had exactly that problem and I suggested the aeromodelling trick to make the wood swell which is to make some very small cuts with a scapel and then drip drops od water onto the depression. after an hour or two the wood returns to its previous size.

- Mike

[Andrew]

Nice. A drum sander with a coarse belt would ruin that floor.

[Andrew]

Except that the dents will still have the varnish or wax so they will absorb water more slowly and unevenly. Tim might have to try and manually scrape the varnish/wax out of the dents with a bit of old glass, or something :-), or resort to nitromors and wire wool.