resurfacing my wood floors and finding that the dark pet stains are quite difficult to extract. sanding removed little, hopefully i wont have to remove the damaged boards. any ideas would be appreciated
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Are you sure these are pet stains. metal tips on the bottom of furniture reacts with the tannin in oak ( I assume you have oak) to cause dark stains , once the poly ( or other finish) on the floor wears thru. In either case try 50/50 solution of water and bleach. This will raise the grain so you will need to sand again, but should remove most of the stain. I really need more info. Is it oak? Is it in the middle of the floor? Is the floor stained a dark or lite? Could you post a pic. I have removed a few stains with great success using this method. But need to use care not to use so much bleach as to create a "white " spot. Sometimes you have to "feather it in" Hope this helps and good luck. Bill D. QWC
Sand the floor and apply wood bleach to the stains. Get the stuff that specifically for bleaching wood...I think WW Supply has it or Rockler. It comes in two parts I have used oxalic acid and even plain old Clorox, but the stuff specifically for wood is the best.
Once you do get the wood bleached with oxlitic acid finish it with shellac.
It's fast, easy, safe, and durable.. (unlike the myths)..
The finest furniture is done with shellac because it brings out the real beauty of wood better than any other finish.
You don't get the plastic look of polurethanes. Or the cold look of water based finishes. You don't have the nasty oder of catalized finishes. 2 hours after starting you can be walking on your completely finished floor.
If you should scratch the finish somehow A few seconds with a rag soaked with denatured alcohol, a brisk rub and the scratch is gone.. (if small children are watching remember to say abracadabra)
You will never again have to sand the floor!
It is the cover story on the FHB I got in the mail yesterday.
If you bleach, you will need to bleach the whole floor.
Or just leave them and call it 'character'. I did.
I guess the OP can just stain the whole floor dark too.
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I salvaged one like that at mom's house a long time ago. Like you said, stain it. I mixed roof cement and paint thinner..LOL, made a great "walnut stain" and the floor actually looked pretty good afterwards.
Uh, don't use fibered roof cement, it makes lotsa littl fuzzzies..(G)Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
"I mixed roof cement and paint thinner..LOL, made a great "walnut stain""No!
Asphaultum is a common ingredient in many oil stains, really. It works well. Try it.
Now I'll fess up even more, I once had to mix it with gasoline when it was all I had, and was deep in the woods in NC.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
I believe ya, I just never thought or heard of someone doing that. And you're right about asphaultum & stains. It's all hydrocarbons.I did the white vinegar & steel wool stain once which worked pretty good. Then some years ago on a fall day as I was cleaning up all the rotten black walnuts out of our pool area, the light bulb went on & I decided to boil up a mess of the messiest ones. I drained, strained, & reduced the dark liquid and it wasn't half bad for staining. I 'm a fan of Rit Dye though. It's a lot easier than the above.
First wife worked for a Civil Eng. up in Sumneytown, and they had the coolest plat printer in the basement and the GOOD ammonia, I just sent a pile of oak there and left it for a week or so, and it fumed perfectly.
The guy that ran the blueprint maker tho', his brain was toast from the fumes..LOLSpheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
I tried & tried to get some of that ammonia as I have some quartersawn white oak butterflied frames I made & wanna fume, but was unable. The blueprint thing is pretty much a thing of the past I think.
Then one night at a faculty party I started talking to the science teacher at my wife's school & he gave me a huge catalog for all that kind o' hard to find chemical stuff.
Haven't ordered it yet, but will.
Find a Meth lab, they seem to get it OK..Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
Yeah meth.....that's all I need to be around.
"But ossifer, I really need the ammonia for fuming my way cool white oak..."
I could see it now.
"hey, could ya loosen the cuffs?"Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
Any of you guys ever use the purple elder berry as a wood stain?
Figured it might turn into a medium brown color.
be Deep Purple
Used Poke weed berries, for magenta. Well, a girl friend made a batch.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
On a SYP floor I used hydrogen peroxide to lighten #### stains. Pour some on a paper towel and cover with plastic. It works so well that it sometimes gets too light, so check it from time to time. It can work in as short as a few hours.
Rich
I have several times encountered badly pet stained wood floors. Others may be able to make bleaching work but I have never been willing to attempt bleaching the whole floor which I have always been afraid would just give me lighter stains on a lighter floor. Spot bleaching has always given me a lighter stain with an even lighter border as the bleach bleeds past the stain. While I have not tried it, I have also figured that staining the whole floor would require a much darker color that I would want to hide the stains, I have gone to staining a faux parquet pattern on the floor which in part covers the stains and distracts the eye so you no longer notice the visible parts of the stain.
After sanding, I start by laying out a geometric pattern on the floor using masking tape. I then stain areas in the pattern with two or three colors of conventional oil stain. (Substitute roofing tar, berries or fermented squirrel guts at your own risk.) To make the tape application easy, I always had a strip of unstained wood between stained areas, the width of this strip determined by the width of the masking tape and left the borders of the room unstained. This way the tape only has to be applied once, stain applied to all the areas to be stained, and then the tape all removed at once. I used 2" tape between around the redder stain in the photo. The blacker stain was surrounded by 1", with a space before another 1" for the next pattern area to give a wider, 4" space between them.
After the tape is removed, I used a straight edge and a black magic marker to outline all the stained areas. This cleans up the look and gives crisp definition to the stained areas. I omitted this step once and the results were disappointing as the stain inevitably bleeds under the tape giving a rough line. The person I first learned this technique from was an artist who also drew a few lizards on the floor including one crawling out from between the floor boards. I have never been confident enough of my artistic ability and I didn't want to be too crazy in rental property. I wouldn't want to loose an otherwise good prospective tenant because they were afraid of creepy crawly things.
To complete the job, finish with poly or your finish of choice as usual.
Staining has a real limitation in that it darkens wood. The darker the wood the darker the room. The darker the room the less spacious it feels and the more it lacks modern appeal.
Bleaching a whole room because of a few spots seems counter productive. I would bleach the areas that are stained and seal them off with tape to ensure only the stains are bleached..
Then once the wood is lighter than surrounding wood it's relatively easy to blend the areas together with weaker bleach feathered out. Now wash the whole floor with clorox and you're done..
Final sanding to eliminate the fuzz that got raised and it's time for finishing..
Kurt,
That's an interesting way to hide a stain. Next time, if you want to avoid having to draw a sharpie line to cover the bleed through, you could first score the outlines with a straight edge and utility knife. With crisp, sharp lines and a dark enough stain (to hide the matching grain) the "inlay" effect could be pretty convincing.