Restoring old wood floor, without varnish.

[Francis]

Hi all, I just begin to read your group, I do like to work on wood project, well will love to start a wood project, this summer I should remove paint of some old furniture, so I'l need an orbital sander ... ;)

Anyway, my true question is, we just buy our first house, I have a wood floor in it, which was burn by the sun in the kitchen. I don't know how you call that in english, but the floor is made with little strip of wood, maybe a little less then 5 inch long and the patern is a square like patern. SO I will like to put something on the floor that will give him is life back, I don't want to sand it. I heard of bee wax, so will a product do a good job or will I only get a 5 day finish unless I sand and varnish it?

THank you.

[Charlie Self]

Francis asks:

More like a 1-1/2 day finish if more than one person walks on it. Beeswax is not a finish for furniture and is even less so for a floor.

Sounds like a parquet floor. I've got one of the recent types in this room, and cannot think of any wood flooring I hate more.

Charlie Self "Health food makes me sick." Calvin Trillin

[Bay Area Dave]

with your vast knowledge and expertise, enlighten us all as to why you haven't replace the floor you HATE so much, good-cheer Charlie.

Should I mention to the folks here what a jerk you were this morning on another NG? Maybe I shouldn't. ok..I'll be quiet.

dave

Charlie Self wrote:

[Francis]

[Luigi Zanasi]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:07:01 -0500, Francis scribbled:

Better to use a paint stripper first. A sander is likely to remove too much wood.

Sers-toi de décapant à peinture en premier, ta sableuse (ponceuse en France) risque d'enlever trop de bois.

Ça s'appelle du "parquet" en anglais, du moins en Amérique du Nord. :-) (Note to Anglophones: parquet generally means hardwood floor in French.)

Il n'y a rien d'autre à faire, il faut sabler et vernir. La cire ne fera que rendre le plancher glissant pour quelques jours, jusqu'à ce qu'il soit lavé. Je ne sais pas si c'est disponible en France, mais je me suis servi d'un produit "Varathane" qui permet d'ajouter quelques couches de vernis sans sabler. Les résultats ne sont pas parfaits, mais pour une petite surface, ça pourrait aller.

is nothing else to do, you need to sand and varnish. Wax will only make to floor slippery for a few days until the next time you wash it. I don't know if it's available in France, but I have used a Varathane product that allows adding a few coats of finish without sanding. The results were not perfect, but are OK for a small area.

Luigi Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address

[Bob Flint]

You don't have to sand it absolutely... you can clean it up with a good brush, an abrasive powder cleaner, and a lot of work!! I did that myself and the floor came out beautiful! Sometimes sanding will remove the darker patina color on the high spots and leave dark lines at the wood joints... can look really bad... It depends on your floor! (I did mine

25 years ago and it needs re-doing in some spots now.

But you DO have to put a floor quality plastic finish... forget the wax alone.

[JohnV]

I restored mine this last summer. Is 3/8" red oak. Sunshine had caused numerous bleached areas. I used an orbital floor sander to sand down. The big flat rectangular type. Ouch, is a lot more work than a drum sander, but since the floor was soooo thin..... Ended up beautifull though. I would definitely sand if you have sun bleached ares on the floor. You will want to even out the color. Hard to do otherwise.

John V

[Stewart Schooley]

Fransis,

This is what I did for an oak floor that was about 12' x 15'. It had areas where the finish was entirely worn off plus it had some scratches;

Gave it a good scrubbing with Spic-N-Span. Went over the entire floor with a large 3M pad. This was to get of all the grime, dirt, and general corruption the cleaning didn't get. Wiped the floor with paint thinner. Put small dabs of artist's Raw Sienna oil paint straight from the tube onto a rag with some paint thinner in it and "stained' the bare spots and scratches. Let it dry for a couple days and put a coat of poly on it. My wife was very pleased.

Lucky for me, Raw Sienna was a perfect match, but if it hadn't been I would have mixed other oil colors with it on a piece of aluminum foil and then picked it up with my rag to apply it.

Stewart

Francis wrote:

[Stewart Schooley]

Fransis,

This is what I did for an oak floor that was about 12' x 15'. It had areas where the finish was entirely worn off plus it had some scratches;

Gave it a good scrubbing with Spic-N-Span. Went over the entire floor with a large 3M pad. This was to get of all the grime, dirt, and general corruption the cleaning didn't get. Wiped the floor with paint thinner. Put small dabs of artist's Raw Sienna oil paint straight from the tube onto a rag with some paint thinner in it and "stained' the bare spots and scratches. Let it dry for a couple days and put a coat of poly on it. My wife was very pleased.

Lucky for me, Raw Sienna was a perfect match, but if it hadn't been I would have mixed other oil colors with it on a piece of aluminum foil and then picked it up with my rag to apply it.

Stewart

Francis wrote:

[Andy Dingley]

You mean the comment (directed at you), "Are you naturally thick or did you work hard for many years to stunt your level of intelligence?"

Oh, no hang on a minute - that wasn't Charlie, it was just another random Usenaut who had encountered BAD and accurately summed him up in moments.

Dave, you were being a jark (again) and several people called you on it. Have you ever though there might be a pattern emerging ?

[Bridger]

filter expression: author is bay area dave action: delete scope: global

[Charlie Self]

Bridger responds:

Did that. Trouble is, he keeps posting and others keep repeating. On the digital photo NG he accused me of often jumping on him, and of using a lot of profanity directed at him. I hadn't seen one of his posts in months here, and I won't see them anywhere now. For every good line he comes up with, he comes up with a dozen that would aggravate Mother Teresa.

Charlie Self "Health food makes me sick." Calvin Trillin

[Francis]