WFB Wood Floor of the Week: Preserving Native American Art on a Gym Floor

Wood floor pro Paul Nelson.Doing gym refinishing and recoating all over the states of Montana and Wyoming is daily life for Paul Nelson of Clinton, Mont.-based Western Sport Floors LLC, but this job in Brockton, Mont., in the northeast corner of Montana, was anything but routine. The gym is located in a school in the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, and it had approximately 20 years of yellowed polyurethane on the original floor. Western Sport Floors had been doing annual maintenance coats on the floor, and both the floor pros and the school staff realized it was time for the floor to be sanded. There was one catch: the four paintings on the court.

“The principal explained that those four paintings were not done with a stencil; stenciling has sharp lines and sharp edges,” Nelson says. “If you look at this you can see an artist had done them freehand.” The principal explained the artist, Jim Dillon, was very well-liked and respected, and he had passed away. “The community considered them priceless works of art, so he asked my opinion if I could sand the floor but sand around those four Native paintings,” Nelson says.

Nelson’s crew laid out two layers of transfer paper over each painting, cutting it in a circle to border each one, to protect them during the sanding process. Riding sanders were used to sand the rest of the floor, with the crews lifting the drums up slightly as they passed over the paintings, and then the crew used edgers to sand up to the edge of the paintings.

The renewed floor was left with a slight ridge around each painting from 20 years of finish buildup, but not enough to cause issues with play on the court. More importantly, Nelson’s crew preserved the legacy of the artist and his Native American art for years to come.

Suppliers: Abrasives: Norton | Finish: Bona US | Sanders: American Sanders