All Is Well that Sands Well

The last step was getting the factory finish off, but now it is time to sand wood. I started with 100-grit to get the finish off, and the question was: What grit will we use next? Before I tell you let me fill you in on some other stuff going on this week: the 4,000-foot job went well, however the HVAC service tech came in to clean the coil in the unit. The unit is inside next to the floor... and the man took a garden hose in the back door and washed out the coil.

Yep, that is right, water went all over the place! He had a wet/dry vac and his plan was to suck the extra water up after he was done. Not good, but now we wait to let it do what it is going to do, and then rip out some and resand the back half of the job. Someone has to pay for this, and I've got a feeling it won't be the floorman.

I am still fighting that edger I was working on, my goodness, everything is rusted and worn. It is not his fault; it was just a bad design in my humble mind's eye.

Remember how I was the highest on the two estimates we did last weekend? Well, looks like we will get both jobs. They felt like we were better prepared to do the work and the insight that was shared during the estimate helped them feel better about our skills. I went under the house and did the "normal" things we do. It does feel good to see the reward of all this pay off.

We are still fighting the subfloor moisture around here, 15-18 % with RH in the high 80's under the homes. Wow, does it make it hard to install wood in these parts. I do not like to install in July, August and December, January. The subfloor is too high or too low and if we do not plan for the wood movement, it is killer.

OK, back to this engineered fingerblock floor: All the finish is off and raw wood is the only thing we are looking at. My goal when taking off the factory finish was to not only get it off, but get it as flat as I could. So the 100-grit cut was on a 45, the next cut was a 45 in the other direction with, that is right, 100-grit. I did not want to make any deep cuts with a 50- or 60-grit paper. The floor will get flat doing the 45 cuts and setting my walking speed at an even but slow pace with the heavy cut got the floor very flat. As you can see this floor has a lot of doorways, so there was lots of edger work, too.

So on to the filling, I did 1,000 feet of trowel fill and it looks good and flat.

Yes, there were a few spots that it was high or low, but that was from the subfloor, not the overwood or underwood. Once it was filled and 100% dry (I let it sit overnight), I went straight on my last cut with 100-grit paper to remove the filler and any scratches in the flooring. The edger work was fast on the second cut; I also only used 100-grit for first and last cuts. The key for the edger is to make sure not to over-use the grit. When it is done it is done; change the paper or you will see it burn the finish or wood. The Hardwood Floors magazine had a good article on sanding factory-finish, so if you can, take the time to read it. I enjoyed it, and it is good insight.

The key is make sure you do not get in a trap and think you do each floor the same. You must look at the flooring and finish to see what steps you will take while sanding a factory-finish floor. The homeowner came in just before I was done cleaning for the day and saw the dust bag, that is 1,000 feet of filler and wood dust, big machine and edger.

She loves the fact that no dust is flying around, "like when the dry wall guys were here" (her words, not mine). The vac unit is a huge selling point for all of us, and around my part of the world we still have two or three guys that do not want a dust control program. Yes, it is a big selling tool, but the truth for me it that it is a money savings. It's less cleanup, and I do not have to eat dust all day. Our finish looks a ton better and our tools are clean, and that adds up to less wear and tear on them.

So on to the hardplate, yep, I went old school on this one. This job is on the second floor and, well, my fake hip is not being friendly to me. I cannot get my multidisc sander up stairs alone, so the buffer is my tool of old school. I will start with the hardplate and 80-grit paper to make sure all is flat, then go to 100-grit paper on softplate with a thick red pad, then finish up with 120 on the soft white pad to remove any scratches in the floor. I am a little behind on this job due to things beyond my control-last week Thursday we had a death in the family, so Friday was not a full work day.

I will make it up this week and have this done Thursday; still, 1,000 feet in 2 half days alone is not too bad, right? Last Saturday and after church on Sunday I had to sand the steps at the big house while no other trades were working. That is the job we had to restore with no sanding other than hand-work and the buffer. The folks like it, it is not new and it is not real ugly, so all is well that sands well. Thank God...I was nervous about the floor. They are now here from Florida and moving in.

Well, it is time to hit the road and get to hardplating the floor, I would love to see a stain coat on today and two topcoats on by Friday morning.