How To Sand & Refinish Hardwood Floors

I'm Shannon from house improvements calm and in my video today I want to show you how I sound and refinish hardwood flooring so for the bulk of the floor we're gonna use a large pad sander like this there are other options out there drum Sanders those sorts of things so depending on the severity of the condition of your floor you may have to go to a drum sander my case this pad sander is gonna do the job basically to start out you want to get as much out of the room as you can put up some barricades or whatever to control the dust because you're gonna have some dust some of these Sanders will have a bag or a vacuum attachment this one doesn't so but it's always a good idea to put up some dust screens anyways so so I did all that we basically have everything out of the room i've i've actually sanded most of this room already we just have a little three foot by five foot area here that isn't done and we're going to go through the process showing you how to do it the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to use an orbital sander like this this one i've got about sixty grit on it and i'm gonna go around the perimeter of the room or what's left here to do and i'm just gonna get right up against the wall any obstacles little sort of things that I need to get tight up against that I can't with this machine you could rent a an edger if you wanted to for what I was doing the combination of these two Sanders is basically going to do it if you've got some big lumps of old varnish or paint or anything like that a scraper just a simple paint scraper like this you can go around and get those chunks off pretty quick and if you really needed to you could use this in a corner to scrape the finish off too if you can't get right in there with the sander another helpful thing that could be helpful is more of a detail sander that has like the triangular pad on it and that'll you know get your aide in tight around anything you have to get in a corner around so basic idea and I'll show you more when we get to this sander is we're gonna use a variety of grits of sandpaper the first ones are going to be really coarse I think I've got a twenty grit and a 36 grit my initial sanding and that's just to get that old finish that old grime off and you'll use quite a few of those pads I don't know on about say a hundred square feet you're probably gonna on this machine you're probably gonna use four or five pads in those lower grits just to get that finish off because they're gonna gum up fairly quickly so I'm using twenty grit what are they thirty six sixty eighty and a hundred I believe are my grits so we'll just go finer and finer every every time we sand just to each each each change of the paper basically sands out the scratches from the previous one so and gets you a nice smooth finish okay so yeah so get all your stuff out of the way go around set any nails or anything like that that might be you know sticking out of the floor fill in any little holes or cracks or big nicks that you obviously can't sand right down through and then you're you're ready to go you're probably gonna want some like a dust mask and that sort of thing maybe some ear protection if you like I probably really don't need high protection but that's up to you so we're gonna reposition the camera and I've got a little bit to do around the edges here with this orbital and then we'll get to the big guy okay so like I said I've just got a basic orbital sander like you might already own and I'm gonna do the perimeter and it's just because you can't get right up close sometimes with some of these machines and in the case of this machine really I'm only gonna do this once just the initial pass to get the finish off itself after that I can get close enough with this one to actually sand scratches and that sort of thing out so I've got sixty grit on here you know if you had a fifty grit or something would be probably even a little better so so I'll make this pass with orbital and then that's probably the only time I'll need it so then you know I guess if you've got a difficult spot to get in you might still need yours after this but I don't hear so [Music] okay so I did the did the edges there in between sanding you want to either sweep up or preferably vacuum up your dust so you aren't grinding that into the the next pass or whatever when you're sanding away so I'm just gonna quickly vacuum this up and then we'll get the sanding pad on the sander and then we'll start that process so because I've got such a small area here it's going to be kind of quick going through this and I'll be changing pads quite often but with this style of this style of sander it's going to come with the I don't know what you call this kind of a sponge kind of deal so you want to stick your sanding paper on to one side of that sponge and we're starting with our courses grit and remember so just set it on the sponge turn that over I'm going to set the sander on to that pad just roughly kind of Center it up on there and then this sander a lot of these stall are kind of the same I'm just going to turn this around for a minute so you can see so obviously its electric but there's also a safety right here little safety button that you're gonna have to push before you squeeze triggers or it won't work I'm sure at the rental shops they get a lot of people fawning thinking they're sander doesn't work but they don't know about the safety so and also most of them will have some kind of adjustment on the handle for storage and whatever so just kind of put it where you want it okay so set your sander on the pad and then with this type of sander you're gonna start up with the pad on the ground when you go to stop sanding you just want to push down on the handle which lifts the the pad up off the ground so what else can I tell you before I start this thing so I'm just gonna be basically making my way around the perimeter and back and forth over this area and I'm just trying to get as much of the finish off as I can if I notice that it's not working as well anymore then that's a good sign that I've need to change my pad because they will get gummed up like I said before yeah I think that's about it so [Applause] [Applause] okay so as you noticed I'm I was kind of moving any direction and with this type of sander you can do that with a drum sander you generally want to go with the green with the length of the board's just so you aren't getting scratches across the green if your floor was in really rough shape though really up and down you would probably go diagonally on your first pass even with the drum sander but after that you'd go with the green this one it doesn't really matter you're trying to get down so that all the finish is gone and I can see I don't know if you'll be able to tell here on the camera but it's getting pretty good here but there's a little low spot in some of these joints and they're still finished there if you're not going to steam or change the color of your floor a little bit of that will generally be alright but if you're staining you for sure want to get right down to bare wood I've got a little bit of a wobble here in the floor up against the wall I'm gonna change to a new pad again I'm going to give this another pass just to try to flatten this out and get down into these grooves a bit better but it's it's getting real close so so this change I'm just going to put another pad on at the twenty grit and I'm not going to worry about us vacuuming up in between this one I'm just staying in the same grit of paper okay so that should be good for that grit and I'm gonna change to a little bit finer which i think is 36 or 35 or something and once i vacuumed this dust up i will do a pass or two with that if you notice when i'm going i'm making a pass and I'm moving over I'm not moving over the full width of the machine I'm going about a third of the machine over and making my passes and I'm going fairly slow something else I'll mention you're doing this in its winter time or even in the summer I guess it stands to reason too if you've got forced air heating or cooling you'll want to turn that off while you're doing this so it's not sucking this dust through the whole house and I would keep that off partially when you're doing the finishing - because same thing it's just gonna contaminate your finish with dust obviously you need some heat though but you got to find that balance [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] okay so I've done my hundred grit which in my case is the final sanding that I'm going to do I'm gonna vacuum a little area here and we'll just have a look okay so I just vacuumed a little spot here basically where we're ready to finish once we get everything totally cleaned up here and and all the dust under control so once you once you have it done and everything vacuumed up before you finish you want to give it a good wipe to pick up any of the fine dust and extra pieces that the vacuum didn't yet you could use a damp rag or a rag with some paint thinner on it just give it a bit of a wipe the entire floor and that will help pick up the fine dust and the you know most of the garbage that's left behind and once that dries and before I put my first coat on I'll probably go over it with a tack cloth as well or a cheesecloth and that'll pick up anything else that's happened to settle in between so alright so kind of our next process is we're gonna clean up and we're gonna start finishing this floor well I'm back yesterday your last night we ran out of time to actually finish this floor so I'm gonna show you right now how to put the first coat on so obviously you just watched me sand this floor and everything I went through afterwards and vacuumed it all up really well then I actually I'm using a polyurethane finish here so I used some paint thinner on a rag and I wiped the entire floor this helped pick helps pick up some of the finer dust and any little chunks in that and then once that was all finished I went over the floor again once the the floor kind of dried out or evaporated then I used one of these tap cloths and I wiped the floor down that just picks up any last little bits and pieces you're always going to have something the more steps you take to pick up every little piece the less you're gonna have in your finish so if you're using a water-based paint or finish you could just use a damp rag and wipe the floor down but just be sure that the floor dries out before you apply your finish so so I'm using a polyurethane depending on what you're using just follow your recommended instructions on the jug or kin or whatever it comes in so so I'm pretty much ready here like I said I've got it all ready I got all the dust off that I can get I've turned the furnace we've got forced-air heating here so I've turned that off to prevent that from kicking in and blowing a bunch of dust off around on me and the basic process I'm gonna do is I'm gonna work my way you know along this wall and work my way back out of the room here and I am I've got some of my finish this I've got my finish in a smaller container that's easier to pour because I'm gonna use a t-bar to apply the finish and you'll see what that is here in a minute and so I'm actually gonna pour it some onto the floor and then I'm gonna use the t-bar basically like a squeegee to manipulate that finish but along this wall that I'm starting on after I do the pour I'm gonna take a brush and just cut in against the wall a little bit it's just easier to get started if I cut in with a brush I've also got this air register here that I've got to work around right off the start which is not a huge deal just a little bit about the t-bar maybe I'll show you that here before I get started so the t-bar is basically a bar that you can see you can see it in here and this handle and I've attached a paint handle to it and then there's a sleeve that goes over top of it so there's a couple different sizes that I know of there's an 18 inch and a 24 inch this is a 24 there's also a heavy and a lightweight this is a new product for me this is actually the first job I've used it on I think if I was doing it again I'd get the 18 inch for these smaller rooms and I probably wouldn't get the weighted bar either I find this one's actually a little hard to maneuver in these smaller rooms so basically you're just gonna use it like a squeegee and you'll see once I get going exactly how it works also something to mention you see how the end of this sleeve here is cut on a little bit of an angle on both ends some art well that's a really good idea because it allows you to get much tighter up against walls or if you have your baseboards still on that sort of thing and it applies the finish down here but it doesn't rub along the wall or whatever you're trying to get up nice and close to so it is nice when they're cut on a bevel like that and I don't see why you couldn't if if your sleeve was straight I don't know I don't see why you couldn't cut that somehow with a knife or scissors or something to put a bevel on it so I'm just gonna set that there until I get started we did one room last night and so I'm gonna do the first to show you the first coat here and then we're gonna go to the other room and show you the second coat and depending on your finish you probably want to do three I'm gonna do be doing three but we'll just show you the first and second coats yeah so just follow your manufacturers instructions on the cans as far as colts and time in between for drying this product that i'm using if i recode it with in a certain amount of hours i don't need to sand in between but if you surpass that time limit then you do need to sand and that's just basically like a 220 sanding sponge go over the floor relatively quickly and then use that cheesecloth or that tack cloth like I showed you before to pick up the dust and then you can do your coats okay so we're gonna get going here I'm going to pour some finish on the floor you want to be careful when you're doing this doing the pouring you know you're going to get some dripping down the side of the jug so you want to have something other than just this floor to set it on so you're not getting leaving a ring behind so I'm just gonna some people have I've actually seen some people use like a plant watering little water jugs sort of thing it's pretty good idea I find this works pretty good and I can pop the lid back on it when I'm done so I'll start here but you'll you'll see me in a minute so I'm just going to take my brush and kind of cut some of this in quickly along this wall and when I pull the t-bar along it it'll help even it out but it's just to get some on that surface there first and your first coat is going to soak in pretty good it's gonna look nice and shiny when you first start or when you first got it on and then once it soaks in a bit it's gonna look a little splotchy but every cool you put on after that will get better and better cut along there a little bit too so like I said but the t-bar you're basically just kind of snow plowing this finish along and it helps if you can make consistent swipes along the whole distance of the room that you're doing kind of pull it out get off the excess and do another pull I don't quite have enough material down there so what you're trying to do is not leave any puddles behind with this weighted bar I'm not really putting any pressure on it if you have the lighter bar you may have to you and as you run out of material you just pour a little bit more on once you're getting close to the end of your room we'll want to be a little bit controlled on how much product you're putting down so that you don't get to the end of the room and then have a big mass to try to use up just trying to get this edge to be covered it kind of can get so far to the one end and I squeeze out the excess out of my brush and then just kind of finish that off like so now as I'm going here I can see I have a couple scratches that I just couldn't get sanded deep enough to get them out and as you get down to the end of the room it gets a little more difficult as you start to run out of space just a little bit more product weighted bar kind of hopes you do not get it on as thick but I think even if you add the light bar it's a little bit of pressure you could easily do the same thing so again I'm trying to be a little bit controlled about how much product I have down here till I know but it's going to take to finish the room yeah that's all I can do with the t-bar I'm just going to get rid of it and because it's a little awkward here at the end of the room I'm just making sure I don't have any puddles there because I couldn't squeeze out my brush anymore or my t-bar and I'll just finish in cutting in along the carpet here but a little bit excess it's pretty good and I'm just looking back to any spots that might not be quite close enough to the wall any access and I realize you can't see some of that because of the camera angle but and yeah we got a pretty good covering on that for our first coat and it looks nice and shiny and glossy right now but it will look a little more dull once it dries this is a semi-gloss and you'll see actually when we go to the next room what the first coat looks like when it's dry so we'll get moved over to the other room and put a second coat on it so here we are in another room I first coated this last night before we left and I'm gonna do the second coat I think I mentioned before I'm doing three coats total you can see I think you can probably see on the camera now this is dried how you get some glossy and some and not glossy spots and that's just from the finish soaking in more coats you put on the better that's gonna get and be more even so in prepping this room for the next coat with the material I'm using I just sand it sanded it quickly with a sanding sponge 220 grit I think and then I did the the tack cloth thing just to pick up a little bit of dots dust and that's her stuff so so I've already kind of pre-cut in a few things here because that's pretty much the same as doing the first coat and I'll do my poor and work my way out of the room that's important you want to always make sure you're working yourself to a point where you can leave the room and not be it sounds like a simple thing but it's easy to kind of forget about your escape plan so same kind of thing we're just plowing this product from one side to the other until we make our way out of the room so I just got to get enough wet here to get started oops no I stepped in my squeegee spot it's more difficult in a small room you don't have the room to give any kind of rhythm going and you can see how all the floor is getting nice and shiny again so I just showed you how to refinish your hardwood floors I've obviously got one more process to go here well two on this floor and one on the other floor one more coat to do but really they're all basically the same follow your manufacturer's instructions according to the finish that you're using as far as whether you're sanding in between or what you're doing will insert some pictures at the end of the video so stick around to see those of the finished products so hopefully you've liked what you've seen here on house improvements comm and we'd appreciate if you give us a thumbs up click the little icon down below you can leave your comments below as well or you can come and visit the forum if you have some actual questions that you need some answers for we appreciate you watching and we'll talk to you next time you

Channel: HouseImprovements

Views: 1,668,016

Keywords: hardwood, oak, maple, floor, flooring, refinish, sand, grit, floors, hard, soft, wood, timber, natural, original, old, varethane, poly, sanding, grits, sander, rent, rental, redo, finish, antique

Id: g5p1FPavj3c

Length: 30min 43sec (1843 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 02 2019