refinish my hardwood floors

[mikeblo17]

my hardwood floors are 115 years of age, and they are pumpkin pine. I was wondering if when I sand these floors there is something I should do differently than an ordinary hardwood floor. The fact that they are soft wood and because they are pumpkin makes them hard to replace. also what would you guys suggest as far as a stain. Polyurethane or a regular stain. keep in mind there are kids on the premisis. haha. thanks guys love the site. hope one day I can contribute. mic

[Phelps]

Soft wood and hardwood can be sanded the same, if one uses a drum sander. Only so much wood is removed per each "pass". It depends how bad the floors are for gouges and cupping as to what grit papaer the floor sander will use for the first sanding. A person doing a nice job will keep increasing to the higher number of grit paper so you don't see sanding lines, before finishing.

The guy that does our floors, in our rentals, usually has to start out with 16 grit paper, to get rid of gouges, cupping, water marks, etc. (16 grit pper is like having one rock on the paper every quarter inch! )

For durability, you should first apply the stain color of your choice. Then top coat it about 4 times with a polyurethane clear coat in your choice of satin, semigloss, or gloss. Tip: If YOU do the sanding and just can't seem to get it perfect and if you have a big bank of windows or a patio door involved where the sunlight could really show imperfections, then you should use satin finish. The glossier the finish, the more it will 'bring out' any ripples from drum sanding.

There was a guy I used to work for that decided he was going to go the route of using one of those circular floor buffing/sanding machines, and he put his son (age 18) to work riunning that sander in the law offices of this historic building he owned. The son never did this before. It took a lot of time, changing to different grits...changing paper a lot... a lot of vacumming. But after it was done? It looked beautiful. Like a pro did it. No drum-sander ripple marks! (as this wasn't done by a drum sander!). The advantage to the circular type sander is that you don't have to use a finish sander up against the baseboard as far out into the room, around the perimerter, as you do with a drum sander. A drum sander can only get to within no closer than like 3inches of the baseboard! So the person sanding has to use an electric orbiting hand sander to finish the perimeter. But with the orbiting buffier/sander, you can get right up to the baseboard! The only areas you can't get to completely are at door jambs and the corners.

Then he used clear satin on these maple floors and even in the light from the giant windows, the floors looked as smooth as glass. AND, contrary to what you would think?: There were no apparant cross grain sanding marks. I guess that was because he finished up the sanding with finer grit paper, and between that and coating the floor, you could not see sanding marks.

[JakeOfAllTrades]

There was a guy I used to work for that decided he was going to go the route of using one of those circular floor buffing/sanding machines

Where could a guy find the name of one of those machines, Phelps?

[Phelps]

At a rental equipment store if you live around any town of any size.

These machines move about from side to side by your slightly tilting the handle, so they like "walk". I had to use one of these years ago (30 years ago) to sand out the entire concrete slab of underground parking to a high rise complex on Siesta key in Florida, when I was a laborer, back then.

Well, that same type equipment can be used for sanding floors. I was quite impressed at the job the 18 year old son of the historical building's owner did. It was a lot of work as you have to keep changing paper, vacuuming, downsizing to finer and finer grit paper, etc. But it came out really nice looking.

And the professional who has years of drum sanding experience leaves ridge marks in the floors that can be seen when you look towards windows where you pick up the reflection on the floor, and gloss clear coat is used. (Maybe it is the antique sander he has?, that his 85 year old dad used to use before he died) That is why if you DON'T get a perfect job and get tired of futzing and futzing, use satin instead.