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I am in the process of refinishing a 3/4 solid oak parquet flooring. Parquets are glued to a concrete subfloor with black asphalt mastic. Replacing them will be a big pain in the … mastic contains asbestos.
I have two black stained, cloud areas that I am trying to eradicate. These stains have been there since the birth of color TV or possibly longer. The floor is already sanded and the stains are deep in the grain. I don’t think that they are pet urine, no smell. Most likely water ??.
I read somewhere that these black stains are next to impossible to remove. Can anybody offer any tips or suggestions? The stains are in areas where they cannot be covered.
I was thinking about ‘camouflaging’ the stains with touches of color paint. Has anybody ever done this before?
Thanks in advance
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Eug,
The stains are difficult, if not impossible, to remove.
Are the blocks tongued and grooved? -- and how old is the floor?
If the blocks are not tongued and grooved there is a very easy way to get them up that will hardly disturb the asphalt bed.
Take a cordless screwdriver and a 2" screw and drive the screw straight down through the centre of the block. As soon as the point of the screw hits the concrete it will act like a screw-jack and lift the block straight out.
Don't touch the existing bed -- lay the replacement block with cold bitumen adhesive and allow at least a week before sanding for it to set.
A tip -- when you re-finish the floor, broad-fill the whole thing before you coat because if the varnish runs down between the blocks it can dissolve the mastic and show a black line at the joint.
*Ian, thanks for your reply. You might remember my previous post regarding the 'gaps in parquet flooring' a while ago. Update, I bought some BonaKemi Pacific filler and troweled the whole floor, almost 700 sq feet. It was a pain, but worth it. Now all the gaps are gone and the whole floor looks really good (of course, IMO). Sanding was a big pain. I started with an oscillating sander. It keep jumping, running away and did not sand very well. My guess some of this is due to inexperience and the whole floor being kind of wavy due to concrete subfloor. So returned it and I rented a drum sander. Whoa! what a difference. The sanding was much easier, controllable and uniform. This became a financial $anding lesson.. :-0At any rate, back to your question. Yes, it is T and G. and there is metal black strap at the bottom of the parquet tile. I will prefer not to remove them as time is running out. Renters moving in next weekend. I might have to postpone this for the future and just finish the floor and call it 'character and charisma of an old wood flooring' :-). Are there ways of disguising, hiding or camouflaging the stain if removal is not possible? I am still thinking about some faux wood paint touch up.Any opinions?At any rate, Ian thanks for your very informative posts regarding wood flooring.
*Try using Oxcilac acid (sp). It is good for removing water stains from oak.
*As it's T & G then it won't come up easily.Bills' suggestion of using Oxalic acid as a bleach will work but mask off, to the edge of whole blocks, the area you are trying to bleach. You'll probably end up with a light patch, instead of a dark one -- if so give the light area a first coat with a little stain added to darken it -- then do the whole floor.
*We got rid of our water bed and found 20 years worth of black stains in the oak flooring underneath, from various leaks that somehow got through the liner. I tried oxycilic acid, deck wash, and Clorox, among other things, without much result. I eventually tried across something called Bix 'Wood Brite'. It completely removed most of the staining there and also on old rain-stained douglas fir wondowsills. Even the deepest, oldest stains were greatly improved, although they took several applications, and the stains were still somewhat noticeable down in the cracks between the floorboards. It didn't make the grain feather up as much as some other stuff I tried,either. It will bleach the surrounding wood to a certain degree unless you tape off the stain, but that can look pretty good compared to the intrusive ugliness of a well-ripened water stain.Don't remember what the active ingredients were, but it really worked, and with minimal damage to the wood itself compared to oxycilic acid or deck wash. Also left nasty chemical burns on my knees, as I recall. I was mopping up and drying the floor as I went, not realizing that as I was crawled around, my jeans were wicking up solution that had seeped down in between the narrow floorboards. Another lesson learned the hard way.
*Well, I went to HD and could not find Oxalic acid. I did find a deck cleaner that contained oxalic acid. I dampened the black spots, first water/deck cleaner and later full strength deck cleaner, several times and wipe them off with a rag and clean water. Final result: The stains are gone!Thanks a lot for your tips!
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I am in the process of refinishing a 3/4 solid oak parquet flooring. Parquets are glued to a concrete subfloor with black asphalt mastic. Replacing them will be a big pain in the ... mastic contains asbestos.
I have two black stained, cloud areas that I am trying to eradicate. These stains have been there since the birth of color TV or possibly longer. The floor is already sanded and the stains are deep in the grain. I don't think that they are pet urine, no smell. Most likely water ??.
I read somewhere that these black stains are next to impossible to remove. Can anybody offer any tips or suggestions? The stains are in areas where they cannot be covered.
I was thinking about 'camouflaging' the stains with touches of color paint. Has anybody ever done this before?
Thanks in advance
PS. Message is also posted in FWW