I have been sanding my maple floors according to the directions of many on this forum and fine woodworking. The floors look great until I wiped the floors with turpentine to remove the last specks of sawdust. I noticed that when I got on my hands and knees, that the floor had little swirl marks from the random orbital sander. I have progressed from 60 grit all the way to the final 150 grit. I was wondering if anyone has any solution for the swirlies? I plan on sanding again with a few passes with the 120 grit and finishing with two passes with 150 grit ( vacuuming between all sandings). I hope this works, otherwise I will probably hire the guy that put in the flooring to finish it as well.
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Maple, a.k.a. hard-rock, can and usually is a bear when it comes to removing visible sanding marks. I think you'll find that you simply have to work at it longer with each progressively finer grit than most woods you're accustomed to. It's the nature of the beast.
As long as you're using a rotary or random orbit sander, you're more likely to create marks that are more easily seen than if you were using a " non-circular" sander" like a drum sander, speed block, or belt sander. The more the action of the sander is in line to the grain, the fewer visible marks it'll make at any given grit.
The problem that you've discovered is that those sanding marks can hide out from your eye more easily in maple than in many other woods so that they don't show until you've wetted the floor with either a solvent or your finish ....... and that's not a good time to find out. And as you've discovered, that's the key to assuring you've got them out........wet the floor with a solvent (don't use water).
The first floor I refinished was maple and I worked up quite a sweat getting it right for the same reason. Beautiful floor, tho.
If they are that bad and they bother you, get a block to wrap with sanding sheets and get down and hand sand it with the grain. A few passes will knock off over half the swirlies so it doesn't show as bad.
For furniture quality, learn to use a scraper and keep it sharp.
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