We asked wood floor pros to share things they used to do but can't imagine doing on a job site today. Here are some of our favorite responses shared by our readers on the WFB Facebook and Instagram pages:
Jimmy Grady
Hand-nail the first and last three rows.
Attila Nagy
Sanding and finishing for $2 a square foot.
Jason Rotter
Coating on hands and knees with 6-inch brush.
Jeffrey Odachowski
Staining by hand.
Alan Lovstad
Hand-scraping all the edges where the edger went when you have to do a stain job.
Alex Franklin
Definitely running a hardplate on my buffer. I still have one, but I don’t use it very much.
Daniel Springer
Buffing a floor with a 16-inch hardplate. Using a maroon pad with 100-grit on a Super7 instead of palm-sanding. Buffing after 60-grit.
Chris Bailey
Hand-wiping stain.
Mark Hanes
Actually screening a floor with a screen.
Patrick J. Russell
Sweep.
Aaron Goodman
Tacking up the insane dust with mineral spirits so it would clump up into something we could sweep up. Don’t miss those days.
Brad Moore
Edging with a bag and coating with a lambswool.
Rob Johnson
Pounding out edger paper.
Michael Gwin
Working without a dust collection system.
Devan Hale
Hand-abrading a floor for final coat.
Pete Helton Jr.
Sanding floors off a temporary power pole in the yard.
Mike Wong
Rotozip for lacing in.
Jim Hyde
Going number 2 in a bucket or a box. There was no such thing as a porta-potty.
David Kartinen
Using old-school dust bags instead of dust containment. My lungs will last longer.
Clinton Duff
Applying stain without gloves.
Steven Triplett Jr.
Hand-sawing door jambs.
Kyle Meeks
Starting a fire on the job site to burn all the big machine dust.
Michael R. Leonzal
Listening to someone else tell me what to do.
Marc Antonuccio
Watching the finish dry.
