How to Refinish Worn Out Stair Treads | Ask This Old House

[Music] hey nathan hey kevin so it looks like you got michael's email michael from rhode island who's got that staircase pretty beat up the finish has been worn off and they're clearly ready to be redone they are they're in desperate need to repair first thing the finish is very important on a stair tread you really want to protect that wood once you break through it water dirt gets into the grain tough to fix them yeah but this is a cutaway of a modern stair tread this is solid nosing veneer top and bottom but it still has a solid oak core to it so you need to be careful when you're doing a lot of sanding don't sand through that and i think one of the reasons why people don't want to take on this project is because the sanding is fussy not just for that reason but you got to go against all of the edges and sometimes around the ballast rod spindles a lot of tight points yeah so michael wants to know can you do it himself definitely definitely any homeowner can do it i got a couple tricks to show them how let's see it first i need to strip it down to bare wood using what grit i'm going to start with an 80. in a lot of older homes you're going to have a lot of built up poly inside the corners i'm lightly going to use a scraper to pull that away in between passes i like to grab the vacuum and vacuum up all the dust and debris and how many different grits you're going to use i'm just going to use an 80 and a 120. that's it huh yeah these are hard-working stairs you know they're going to get beat up they're not a piece of furniture now we're ready to add the polyurethane to the tread but if you want to this would be a great time before you do to paint your risers or your scotia or even swap the scooch out for some oak if that's your style and you don't you don't need the tape i got a pretty good brush here and a pretty steady hand so if you wanted to you could tape off the edges if the homeowner wanted to they could actually change the color of the tread by applying some stain but you really got to do a good job getting rid of all that old polyurethane if you don't that stain won't take to the tread and then you're going to see it right it's just not going to be even yeah it's not going to look clean and when applying the polyurethane it's nice to go with the grain and just do nice even strokes and when you finish the tread off do one nice long passing stroke with the grain looking pretty good so how many coats i'm gonna do three coats i'm gonna let this dry for a couple hours i'll come in i'll sand it tack cloth it apply another coat of poly repeat the process and he's all set all right well i think michael's got everything he needs right he can pull this off can he absolutely all right nice job man thank you thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button make sure that you get our newest videos writing your feed

Channel: This Old House

Views: 132,679

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Nathan Gilbert, stairs, treads, Kevin O’Connor, refinish, 1-3 minutes, How to Refinish, How to Refinish Worn Out Stair Treads, Ask This Old House carpenter Nathan Gilbert, carpenter Nathan Gilbert, renovation ideas for old homes, renovation ideas for small houses, stair treads, nathan gilbert carpentry, nathan gilbert this old house

Id: Enb5bQ_uYac

Length: 2min 37sec (157 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 12 2020