It took about 80 hours of meticulous work for Josh Sandoval to craft this 9-foot white oak medallion—and that’s not including the time he spent working on it in his sleep. “I would wake up in the middle of the night being like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to do this tomorrow!’” says Sandoval, who runs Sandoval Sanding in Bellingham, Wash. “I would be figuring out this technique when I was dreaming.” It was, after all, the kind of job most wood floor pros dream about: What started out as a simple refinish job blossomed into 1,000 square feet of custom flooring without any strict timeline. The spirograph pattern Sandoval chose for the medallion in the master bedroom was modeled after a historic wood floor Sandoval saw legendary Belgian wood flooring master Filip Redant restore. The 5-by-5-inch rift-and-quartered white oak pieces that make up the center of the medallion were hand-cut in Sandoval’s shop using a table saw and Festool Kapex. When the pieces were ready, he carefully glued each one to the slab, making sure the grains differed throughout.
Sandoval sanded the floor with a Pallmann Spider before using his Shaper Origin, a handheld CNC machine, to cut the spirograph pattern into the floor, a process that took about 16 hours. Once it was cut, Sandoval poured blackened epoxy into the pattern, then sanded the floor again. He completed the floor with two coats of natural oil finish, followed by one coat of a matte waterborne finish.
Pursuing dream projects can be equally rewarding and tiring, Sandoval notes—especially when they invade your actual dreams. “You’re constantly troubleshooting and problem solving, and it consumes your life,” Sandoval laughs. “So getting on the other side of it felt like finishing a marathon.”
SUPPLIERS: Abrasives: Norton Abrasives | Adhesives: Wakol | CNC machine: Shaper Origin | Multi-head sander: Pallmann Spider | Edger: American Sanders | Filler: Woodwise | Finish: Bona | Moisture meter: Lignomat | Saws: Makita
