Hi Guys,
I’m in the process of refinishing my living room and dining room floors. The floors are Oak and in fair shape except for the traffic areas. These floor where originally treated with a golden oak stain and two coats of poly. I’m looking to remove the polyurethane but don’t want to do more than that, the combination of the old stain and the new darker stain is the look I’m looking for. Anyway, my local tool rental place has the traditional drum sander and edger and my local HD has a sander with four discs (4â€) that was recommended by them for this job. I’m not familiar with this machine and was wondering if anyone can give me some advice.
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Thank you in advance,
Rick
Replies
A drum sander is a really hard to use correctly if you don't have any experience with it, you can/will gouge the hell out of the floor.
I have used the HD rental random orbit sander, which is a large 10/14" pad, and have had good luck with it, it is slower but much more forgiving.
Do a search here for past posts on floor sanding and you'll get some good threads on all the details of best practice for refinishing, as well as a few favorable comments on the 4 pad HD rental sanders (I haven't used them).
I have seen but not used the 4-disc machine but have used a drum sander on many occasions. The drum sander will probably remove more than the poly, since these are also used for initial leveling of the floor. Too hard to control and sounds like too much for your job.
You might consider screen sanding with a single disk machine. basically a floor polisher. Very forgiving and works well for top coating. This would be good if some of the old poly is still present and will probably preserve the stain.
A floor buffing machine like this one using a "screen" will remove just the poly.
Do a test area first because the buffer can get away from you until you get used to it.
Be well
andy
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
Nice wood! What are you using to fill the gaps and cracks?
Nice wood! What are you using to fill the gaps and cracks?>>>>This house is circa:1680 and those particular floors are original and yeh,,,the wood looks amazingggggg. Beleive it or not I'm using Elmers wood putty from HD. I did another few rooms with it well over a year ago with zero problems. I fill all the real large spaces between planks with PL Premium then the wood putty on top after the PL is totally dry. In my case I'm able to PL it from below in the basement. You could see the lights in the basement when they were on between the floor planks...lol...at night.
I was going to use Bondo wood filler but this has been working so far so....Stains nicely too. You can see a finished shot I took today in the Photo Gallery here in BT. The pic looks like the filler hasn't taken stain well but its just the shot. It stained up nice.
First coat of poly is tomorrow.
Be floored
andy
The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,
I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.
one other thing...if youre not going to sand be reallyyyyyyyy careful filling gaps and cracks. REALLY CAREFUL!!The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!
When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..
I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,
I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you
and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.