Some of the best wood flooring industry talent gathered in West Palm Beach, Fla., March 5–7, for the International Wood Flooring Association’s Game Changer Expert Sand and Finish School. Lead instructors included Avedis Duvenjian and Vartan Arutyunian of Archetypal Imagery in New York City, Howard Brickman of Brickman Consulting in Norwell, Mass., and Daniel Boone of American Sanders in Charlotte, N.C.
The school was hosted at the Jack Walsh Trade Showroom, and additional manufacturer representatives included Kevin Brophy and Russell Cunning of American Sanders, Mark Meidra of WerkMaster, Stan Dennison of Teckton, and Gaby Saad of Real Wood Floors. Other sponsors included Castlewood Corporation, Festool, Norton, Oreck, Padco, Powernail, Real Wood Floors, Titebond, Vesting and Wood Floor Business.
Among the things students experienced were…
... a master class in floor sanding from Boone:
… extensive slivering techniques:
... layering and curing techniques with LED-cured finish:
… detailed finish repairs:
… creating custom borders with oil finish:
… techniques to add custom works of art to wood floors:
… edger setup:
… and removing prefinished coatings:
And, in what is becoming a tradition, the school closed with an Armenian barbecue:
Keep an eye on the WFB E-News for more information on upcoming IWFA schools, including a special one-day training to be held on Nov. 4 in conjunction with WFB Live, a new wood flooring event that will take place at the Baltimore Convention Center on Nov. 5.
See more photos in this Facebook album and see some of the action at the Game Changer school in this video: