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Using a drum sander


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Refinishing Hardwood Floors

by mdhaworth

(August 2007) (rank 3rd)

This advice is based on our experience refinishing the oak floors in our 60 year old home. When we moved in they were completely covered in carpet.

Getting started

First, be sure to check that you actually have hardwoods under every part of your floor. We were unpleasantly surprised by a plywood hallway when all the bedrooms had original oak.
If the floors are in reasonably good condition you could lightly sand with a floor sander and put finish on top but it’s hard to get a good finish so we did a complete refinish.
Use plastic to secure the area you will be working…it gets VERY dusty. Wear eye, mouth and ear protection. A dust mask is critical.
Remove your base shoe (not base molding).

Sanding

Sand the floors thoroughly down to clean wood. You can rent tools at your local home center. We found that the belt sander, while the most aggressive, was the only one that really worked.
For the first pass, don’t be afraid to use a coarse grit but keep the sander moving or you can gouge the floor
Sanding diagonal to the grain helps level the floor and is okay for the first pass but as you move to finer grits of sandpaper, be sure to work with the grain.
Once the main part of the floor is done, you can use a specialized edging sander to get right up to the edge of the wall. Be very careful with the edge sander, we have a few areas that got gouged with this tool. We rented this from the home center

Putty is important

Once the rough sanding is done, apply putty across the entire floor with a trowel and press it in.
We used “ZAR brand interior latex, trowelable floor patch.” This fills a lot of gaps/nail holes you might not even notice. (if you miss an area, you’ll see the nail holes when you’re done—not that I would know). Scrape off the excess with the trowel but don’t worry about leaving some residue.
After the putty is dry, use your floor sander and move through finer grits of sandpaper working with the grain to remove excess putty and smooth the floors. Go up to perhaps a 180 grit paper for your final pass
Touch up around the edges with a small orbital sander (not the aggressive edge sander).
Now vacuum thoroughly and get ready to finish.

Finishing

We used a clear oil-based urethane finish. It’s easy to apply with a paint pad with an extension pole (use it like a mop).
Apply a reasonably wet, even coat. Allow to dry for 24 hours (or per instructions on your finish).
Lightly and quickly scuff sand with a handheld orbital sander and fine grit paper and re-vacuum your floor.
Apply another coat of finish same as above.
Repeat so you have a total of three coats of finish.
Add base shoe on your baseboards (even if you didn’t have it with your carpet, base shoe looks good with hardwoods)
Allow several days if possible before moving in your furniture and rugs.

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