Sanding Unfinished Wood Floors

There s another advantage you need to know when learning how to sand hardwood floors.

Sanding unfinished wood floors. Sanding a wood floor is a multi step process. It is one of the most abundant. How to install unfinished oak hardwood flooring. Every time you sand a floor down to bare wood you remove some of the wood.

Not sanding a freshly laid hardwood floor and finishing it as is makes the installation less messy and time consuming but it would be a mistake. None of it is rocket science but it will help you to read through all the sanding pages including first things first working with sanders and edgers and the sanding faq before you begin. Start with a low grit like 40 climb to 60 80 then 100. Sanding levels the edges of the floorboards which can vary from one another by as much as 1 4 inch.

The exact same way you would with floor sanding machines but with a lot more elbow grease. You can finish sand both of these surfaces with 180 grit for example but you might begin with 80 grit on the solid wood and 120 grit on the plywood. A step by step video for a home owner on how to use various wood floor sanders and how to apply the finish. But laminated floors glue down or floating floors have only a thin layer of good looking wood veneer over.

A typical nail down inch tongue and groove wood floor can be resanded several times by a good professional flooring contractor. That way you ll get a heads up on and hopefully the knowledge to avoid some of the problems you might encounter and some of the mistakes beginners make. Solid hardwood boards are 3 4 inches thick and each has a groove milled in its side that overlaps the tongue of the adjacent board. So it is only right that i do an article about sanding wood floors with hand sanders.

Use a handheld orbital sander ideally with a gear driven setting. It would be a total waste of time and effort to begin with 80 grit on the pre sanded veneered wood and you would risk sanding through. The groove overlap is typically about 1 4 inch thick. Most beginning floor contractors would have a tendency to sand too much off the floor decreasing the overall life and leaving little or no wood for the next sanding.

How to sand a hardwood floor by hand. Flooring experts estimate that hardwood floors can be sanded for refinishing up to 10 times depending on the thoroughness of the sanding and the level of wear and tear on the floor. Despite the ever increasing selection of hardwood flooring materials available oak continues to be the standard. A solid wood floor can be sanded several times before that s a problem.