Now, this job was a pain to get hooked up. It's an older home that has never been updated with the breakers or 3-wire ground outlets. I could not plug the vac, buffer or edger to the wall outlets because it had no ground. What to do? The house was getting a new kitchen with a 220 stovetop and oven, so the easy way was to pull off that line. Well, it was a good idea but they were using the earth ground as a neutral, and that is unsafe.
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Now, this job was a pain to get hooked up. It's an older home that has never been updated with the breakers or 3-wire ground outlets. I could not plug the vac, buffer or edger to the wall outlets because it had no ground. What to do? The house was getting a new kitchen with a 220 stovetop and oven, so the easy way was to pull off that line. Well, it was a good idea but they were using the earth ground as a neutral, and that is unsafe.
The floor was a mess; there was glue from the carpet backing and someone used paint remover thinking it would remove the glue:
I had to start with open paper and finish up with 100 grit to get it all off, but the edger work was not so bad-I got to start with 36 and run through the grits to 100. I worked the wall line four times with the edger to get it right and flat. It was one ugly floor but it looks great now, the lady who is going to live in the house came by to pick up some mail and looked at the floors, and she was very happy to see the wood:
I am using the water-based finish that Janet with Lenmar let me have after the NWFA open house; the color is nice and the smell is nothing. This is the job where the lady has some lung issue and needed to have little or no odor left in the house. It is nice not to have to wear the mask; yes I know, it is not the right thing to not wear it, but the stink was nothing. I will wear the mask for the next coats; I just wanted to see if it would smell. Water cleans up nice and is easy to work with, and having no smell is real nice. I am going to put on the last coat with a roller, not the T-bar, as my skills with a bar are weak... it has been some time for me. We roll the finish so much that my skills with a T-bar, well, they suck.
I have two more jobs to go look at this week and estimate. One is an install, sand and finish, and the other is sand and finish. One of the jobs is heat-treated wood that I will use Monocoat finish on. They had some folks try samples with poly and water-based finishes, but nothing looked good on the heat-treated wood. I got the call and the only question was, "Can you find something that makes the wood look rich?" Monocoat will, so I did a sample for them, and bingo! They love the rich look; it looks pure and clean. The install will be a task because the treated wood splits easily when the cleat hits the tongue, but my friends at Primatech have the thin nails, so that is the gun I will use. We have the 16G and 18G guns just for this type of stuff. It also helps with maple, hickory and the hard imported woods that split. It's going to be a fun job, and I cannot wait to see the finish on the job. The wood is elm, but after they heat-treat it, it looks like black walnut.
Truth be told, I haven't got much to write about this week; next week we start the stairs and resand job where the horse walked on the floor inside the house. I will take a photo of the floor so you can see it, but it is just beat up, thank God he did not have shoes on! The stairs will take me some time to make right-the dogs cut them up like a chain saw with attitude.
So, you all take care and keep in mind that I will be slow with the blog because of the time spent on the stairs-but keep an eye out for the next video blog. Be safe and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year just in case I do not get to write anything before then.
