Stripping a wooden hall floor

beer enigma

Hi folks,

our house is roughly 50 years old and has a nice wooden floor laid in the hallway. I'm told that it's oak, and is made up of lengths of wood roughly 3ft long by 4 inches wide....you get the picture...

Anyway, its very dirty and has god only knows how many layers of varnish on top of it. What I'd like to do is strip it right back & give it a good coat or three or a high gloss varnish.

Two questions:

1) what would you use to strip it back ? - solvent or sander ?

2) what type of varnish would you use to finish the job once I have it back to its best.

Cheers

Andi

Idleater

Andip wrote:

Two questions:

1) what would you use to strip it back ? - solvent or sander ?

2) what type of varnish would you use to finish the job once I have it back to its best.

Cheers

Andi

I rented a walk behind drum sander at the local Hire Shop when I sanded the old floors in my house. Assuming that your hall is wide enough to make use out of the sander then I would recommend that. I also rented a smaller disc sander to do the edges. Had it done in a day - very easy to do as long as you put the sandpaper on correctly.

As for varnish, i'd go for a tough hardwearing one. Ronseal Diamond Coat being the popular brandname and available in Woodies and the like. Im sure there are other varnishes that you can get but that is the one that I went for.

Also, if you do sand the floor, I would suggest varnishing it soon afterwards. Footprints will easily mark the bare wood. I put boards down as a pathway and only wore socks going through the room for the day that I had to wait before varnishing.

L.

mad m

Be carefull of the small disc sander for edges when coming to radiator pipes,one slip and its like a knife through butter.

As for choice of sanders like it was suggested^^if hallway is big enough to take the drum sander/sqaure sander.The drum sander is a knack in its self to opperate.Firstly before anything make sure there are no nails sticking up or it will tear sand paper on drum to shreds plus its frightening when it happens.

The drum sander when started you have to ease it down,dont just plonk it down or it will leave a little bore mark in wood.And while coming to other end of hallway before you come to skirting slowly lift it up or hitting skirting will make it bore into floor.Just take your time.

From experience though oak is not naturally bowed like tongue&groove floor boards,the drum sander is designed to take the bow out of the tongue&groove.Where as you can get a huge square sander and vibrates like a buffer,the sheets of sandpaper stick on like velcro from memory.There are many ways to go about sanding down a floor,always go with grain where possible and use rough to smooth sandpaper over the whole process.You will know from roughness from feel and where on back it says P60-P80-P100-P120 and so on the higher it goes the finer the sandpaper is.

Another tip is to keep some of the finer sandpaper after using it to sand in between coats of your choice,water based or cellouse(two pack) based lacquer.The water based paint is normally best put on by a four inch brush working your way to an exit.The cellouse based lacquer is cut in(edges first) then rolled with a mo-hair roller.This lacquer is mixed with a cataylist to make it harden.Both of the above finishes drys quickly,but if you havent used the cellouse before it can be tricky,you have to watch out for drips or they will dry hard as they are etc.Also the cellouse has very strong vapours as opposed the water based finish.

My choice is cellouse,its very hard wearing.Done my sitting room floor in it(5 coats) and after 6years it still looks fine apart from the knocks and bumps floors get.The hallway is different as traffic is only going through it and not stopping if you know what I mean.

hope this helps.

P.s By any chance does the hallyway have an old black border going around it like they used to do it years ago?

beer enigma

mad m wrote:

P.s By any chance does the hallyway have an old black border going around it like they used to do it years ago?

Nope its all wood.....just checking here in case it makes a difference, the floor is not like plain floorboards, its more of a parquet floor type, except the individual boards are longer...as I say three foot strips.

Will a drum sander be gentle enough on this ??

Really appreciate your help here guys

mad m

Well the drum sander is a rough piece of kit,checkout the square buffer sander it might be the better option,but might take longer to sand floor.

dogg_r_69

mad m wrote:

Well the drum sander is a rough piece of kit,checkout the square buffer sander it might be the better option,but might take longer to sand floor.

True the drum sander is a bit on the rough side but if there's much varish or whatever finish is on the floor already the square buffer sander will take a long time to sand down to the timber.
Ideally, you could use the square sander after the drum for a good finish.