hand finishing hardwood- rehabbers? - Posted by Anne_ND

Real Estate Investing
1

Posted by Anne_ND on August 03, 2004 at 07:12:40:

They’re too thin to be drum sanded- only 1/4 inch.

Thanks though.

Anne

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hand finishing hardwood- rehabbers? - Posted by Anne_ND

Posted by Anne_ND on August 02, 2004 at 16:49:28:

Hi,

I haven’t seen this question about hardwood floors in the archives, so here goes…

We are pulling up the maple floors in a 101 year old house. None of the rooms has pristine flooring, so we are going to have to mix and match the planks to get a few rooms worth of good maple. The planks are fragile, many are damaged. They are about 1/4 inch thick and we are removing them by hand.

I understand there is a machine we can use to sand down the top surface very slightly plank by plank before we put them back down. I’m wondering if it would be worth trying to sand them by hand. Some of them have glue on them, some have paint and some are very clean. It appears that the planks are too thin to be sanded the conventional way after they are put on the floor.

Leaving aside WHY we are doing such a time-intensive task (because I couldn’t give you a good answer), has anyone done this?

Thanks!

Anne

3

Re: hand finishing hardwood- rehabbers? - Posted by rm

Posted by rm on August 03, 2004 at 20:35:25:

This is a job for an expert.

IME, the difference between an amateur refinish and a pro’s work is DRAMATIC.

If it’s the kind of house that demands a hardwood floor, you should get a good contractor to do it… better to skimp in other areas, if necessary, to cover the cost.

4

Re: hand finishing hardwood- rehabbers? - Posted by rehabber

Posted by rehabber on August 03, 2004 at 18:33:03:

Only 1/4 of an inch thick???

Either these planks were

  1. original to the house, but drum sanded many, many
    times before so now they have been reduced to 1/4 thick
    (doubt that - original planks were 3/4 thick - each
    drum sanding time only takes off about 1/8 inch max -
    unless someone along the way went nuts with the drum
    sander)
    or
  2. These were not original to the house and were thin
    to begin with

If these weren’t original, why save them? No historic
value. Even if they are original, 1/4 is very thin.
You could get a Delta thickness planer, plane off 1/32
of an inch, then follow up with a smooth hand sanding.

Or…
Buy new hardwood floors. You can get hard maple for
$4 a foot if you look around. Some cost effective
sources are:

www.rare-earth-hardwoods.com

5

Re: hand finishing hardwood- rehabbers? - Posted by jb

Posted by jb on August 02, 2004 at 21:41:33:

Maybe you should take a drum sander that people use to refinish floors to the entire floor first, then pull them up. This will be a much more efficient way than by pulling them up then sanding them by hand.