P.S. Don't Use Too Low of a Grit. When you're sanding, nail heads will rip the sanding belt (which costs you money) or gouge the sanding drum (which costs you more money). They thought it looked great. Most hardwood floor companies won’t stain maple, the usual reasons being that it will be blotchy and uneven. Many consider this a nice, contemporary “Scandinavian” look. Use the edger (using the same grit you just used on the drum) to sand all the areas that the drum couldn’t reach. That is the only way you’ll know how your sanding is going (well, you can always wait for the finish coat, which will pop the hell out of everything you did to that poor maple). Start your sanding at 60. When they were done, it didn’t look good. What works on oak doesn’t work on maple. Floors made of maple, birch, and coniferous woods (especially pine or fir) are all very difficult to stain evenly. The exact same way you would with floor sanding machines, but with a lot more elbow grease! Worldwide leader. Prefinished Floor Finishes vs. Site-Finishes Floor Finishes, Scratches from the big machine (with the direction of the floor), Thickness planer marks on every stair tread (new install). Final sanding of pattern floors should be performed with a screen and disk sander. So countersink all nails by at least 1/8 in. Engineered wood flooring is usually 4-8mm and is … You are most likely going to refinish one maple floor every few years, so you will not get that many chances to practice. Sanding a maple floor is not like sanding oak. Sometimes, even if you check the floor with a moisture meter before applying the finish, stain that sits in the cracks isn't dry. You want to make sure you give yourself enough time between each coat of finish so you don't get poly beads. Laminate Maple flooring: Pergo are of course the kings of laminate, and have some nice maple ones in their catalog, but also have a look at Mannington, BuildDirect, Home Decorators at the Home Depot, and Shaw Floors for a wider variety of maple laminate floors… Try to evenly sand the entire project with this final sanding. It wasn't always like that. Work your grit up until at least 100 before you start buffing. Start with a low grit like 40, climb to 60, 80 then 100. Use a handheld orbital sander, ideally with a gear-driven … Begin by using a drum sander or … Y es you can have your maple floors stained a different color.. Pull up all the heating grates and any old carpet tacks before you sand. Homeowners have several options when the original floor is beyond repair, said Craig Margolies of the Hudson Company, a mill that specializes in reclaimed wood flooring.Reclaimed pine can be sanded and used to re-create the look and feel of old subfloors, new parquet with borders can blend in seamlessly with a brownstone, or unfinished wide-plank oak flooring … Maple must be sanded uniformly. You will need to get on your hands and knees with a light so that your eyes are only a few inches away from the floor. First read the article “hardwood refinishing” this will get you acquainted with how hardwood refinishing is done so we can move on from there. Have a super-clean floor and super-good abrasives. Serving the Flooring, Woodworking & Moulding Industries Since 1930. Because maple is so light, scratches will not be so easy to spot like on oak floors… It cant be thinner than 3mm. Three guys took the task to sand that floor. Hope it helps you out on your next maple refinish. From straight-lay strip to parquet, herringbone and more, these articles offer the 411 on wood floor installation. Seal off the doorway to the room with a plastic or fabric drop cloth and cover the … A few years back I attended a floor technical school. The 13 steps to sanding your floors: Determine your grit sequence. It all depends on the thickness of the wear layer. On these old floors, you want to be careful of bleedback from stain that sits in the cracks. Your email address will not be published. It is light, so even after you buffed it between coats, you can’t really see where you applied finish and where you didn’t. Each time this happened, dirt and debris got caught in the cracks, leaving the wood unable to fit as tightly as it had previously. means working very hard to remove the sanding marks left from using the open-coat papers. The key to evening out the stain is to sand the project thoroughly, using progressively finer sandpaper grits. Sand & 3 Coats $1.50 Per Sq. The popularity of using wood as flooring has ebbed and flowed throughout recorded human history. Translated this means that either they don’t know how to do it, it takes extra work to do or they think that it is supposed to look like a stained oak floor … Some even get so hard they feel like you're sanding concrete, causing your paper to dull out extremely fast. He can be contacted at aaron@signaturecustomflooring.com or (920) 279-7871. Sand all main field areas with the drum sander on the first grit of your determined sequence. Maple floors are so hard that they often require 36-grit sandpaper as well. Sanding. Avoid sanding maple too smooth. Your email address will not be published. Even at 3mm, if the floor is lumpy, you risk sanding through to the ply substrate. There was only one panel that was made out of maple, the rest were red and white oak panels. There is a certain art to understanding what you’re doing to a floor while sanding it. You can leave the baseboards in place … Notice there wasn’t any “Google it” advice in my blog. The safest approach is to first ... Tim Nathan, market specialist/upper Midwest regional manager at Basic Coatings, shared this tip: I pointed out everything I saw. Stain absorption rates of maple can differ greatly as a direct result of sanding technique. Unfortunately, sense is not that common, so focus on attending schools and having good machines. Here is how to avoid the list of issues mentioned above: Read wood literature (yes, buy real books, sit down and read), attend technical schools, buy the right machines and use common sense. See more on this topic: Wood Floor Sanding. When sanding a new floor, you’ll often want to define the finest grade you want to use and then work backwards, skipping a grade of grit between each sanding. Robert Higgins, an Ormond Beach, Fla.-based independent consultant, answers: Maple is hard and has a closed grain. By Avi Hadad for Hardwood Floors Magazine. Thank you for your patience. Wood flooring abounds in modern building construction—from apartments to homes to workplaces. Repeat floor and edge sanding with a fine-grit sandpaper. Because there are so many items available to you, this can be a slow process. I generally don't like to use any less than a 36-grit paper. For example, if you’d like the finish grit to … Maple and birch … Because maple is so light, scratches will not be so easy to spot like on oak floors. All unfinished maple gym floors should be sanded with a minimum of three cuts using coarse, medium and fine sandpapers. Using a drum sander or an orbital sander (most likely a drum sander), begin sanding your floor. If you have an engineered wood floor with a real wood surface, make sure the real wood surface is more than 1mm thick—sanding usually takes at least this much wood off the surface , so a thicker layer is required for a complete sanding. Depending on the finish being … To detect nails, drag a metal snow shovel across the floor … Ok, so you read that are familiar with the process now we can move on how staining of maple … Using too low of a grit. You will need to start with a 25 grit paper due to the hardness of the maple floor. Gradually work … I also like to keep the drum pressure in the middle position to help make sure that the sanding peaks from the last cut are all taken out. Sanding Maple Stripping may be straightforward, but sanding maple can be difficult because of its hardness; you can seldom remove all the previous stain and residue without resorting to a sanding … Start with 120 grit before moving up to 180, and finally 220. Feb 27, 2014 - Explore Signature Custom Flooring LLC's board "Stained Maple Floors" on Pinterest. Rough-Sand the Floor Sanding eliminates scratches and stains from a hardwood floor, but may not be able to alleviate the deepest gouges or discolored patches of wood. Many times on these old maple floors, there is a type of coating that tends to gum up the sandpaper. "Our customer... Everything from basics on running the big machine to detailed buffer techniques and more are in these wood floor sanding articles. Many times on these old maple floors, there is a type of coating that … I've found that, the older maple floors become, the harder they seem to get. Determining when the stain is ... Motors 101 & What Wood Flooring Pros Should Know, Part 1. Hard maple floors offer a nice, light, bright look to a room, and are often paired with matching cabinetry when the home is built. This old maple differs a bit from newer maple floors. Step #1: Sand the floor For both applications the best way to start is by sanding the maple floor flawlessly. I recently was asked to look at a maple floor to fix. Those guys were in the business of floors for more than 20 years. Since A-Z Floor Sanding was founded more than 20 years … Sweep or vacuum all sanded … They quickly realized their technique was poor, and their sanding sequence was mediocre at best. Also, many of these homes did not install cooling systems until years after the floor was installed, causing the floor to expand and contract. Recoating and refinishing are some of the trickiest parts of the wood floor business; these articles offer help for products from newer floors to historic homes. You’re a professional. If you understand these three factors, you will sand a maple floor very successfully. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Sanding wood floors & refinishing yourself will definitely save money, and even an inexperienced homeowner can likely do a better job than the lowest bidding handyperson who quotes on it.Once you understand the basics, a quality final result on your wood floor … I had to come over and open my big mouth. Maple is light in color, hard and has a closed grain. it is a good idea to have one or two guys just checking you while you’re applying the finish. Professionals don’t Google their profession. Happy sanding! Typically, the installation sanding will remove a full 1/32" of maple thickness above the tongue. Because maple floors are characteristically hard and very straight-grained, they show every sanding imperfection. Before applying stain to your wood floor, you need to know what species it is. Sanding is obviously the most essential. Originally written for Hardwood Floors Magazine’s Contractor Blog on April 27, 2014. Here in the area where I do the majority of my work—central Wisconsin—there are a lot of old houses with original maple flooring. This final sanding … Required fields are marked *. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. You need to be extra careful with the sanding because any imperfections will be highlighted once you start staining and finishing the maple floor. Then, using some 320 grit paper, sand … A step by step video for a home owner on how to use various wood floor sanders, and how to apply the finish. See more ideas about maple floors, hardwood floors, flooring. Well, guess what? For my final paper used for edging, I find silicon carbide abrasive discs work the best. However, after just a few years the maple … If you understand these three factors, you will sand a maple floor very successfully. How can I remove the stain? Here are a few things I've found that will help you in your sanding process if you find yourself having to sand one of these old maple floors. You can’t put 36-grit scratches in it and expect to be able to remove them. A complete sanding removes scratches, but beware: This only works on real wood floors, not bamboo. Now You Know. It looked okay, and it had a clear finish, which is pretty forgiving. Future sandings typically do not remove any more than 1/32" of … When I sand maple, no matter if I'm doing it natural or staining the floor, I finish off with 120-grit paper on my big sander. A 1,149-Square-Foot Medallion Made for Dancing, https://www.nortonabrasives.com/en-us/markets/floor-sanding?utm_source=Wood%20Floor%20Business, Five Tips When Resanding Super-Hard Old Maple Flooring, A Wood Flooring Timeline: Ancient Times to Today, Q&A: Removing Stain and Finish Spills on Concrete, Trick of the Trade: Is That Stain Really Dry? It had every imperfection you can think of: Maple is light in color, hard and has a closed grain. Sand the perimeter of the floor with the edge sander, using the same medium grit as the floor sander. I accidentally spilled some wood floor stain on the concrete front steps of my customer's home. Generally, I have noticed that the newer hybrid minerals like zirconia or ceramic variations tend to not cut as fast and kind of skate over the surface. Innovative wood floor sanding technology. I've even seen this happen when using a water-based sealer. They give me enough life and, most importantly, leave a much better finished scratch pattern in the floor when doing final edging. Seal Off the Room. Ft. A-Z Floor Sanding is one of the leading floor sanding, repair & installation companies in the Tri-State Area. However, if the floor is in really bad shape and has old varnish or black backing from a linoleum floor, I'm required to go down to a 24-grit paper. When the interior designer suggested stone for this dance floor, the client balked. When fine sanding maple floors, always reduce drum pressure to its lowest setting and slow the drum speed if your machine allows for it. We're looking up all of your individual pricing and inventory levels. This is a question we get every week in our field “Can you stain my maple floor?”. Your buffer will not take that scratch out (but my Trio will). So many old floors have gaps caused from years and years without maintenance. These are a few tricks I've learned over the years of sanding old maple floors. However, they tend to leave a deeper scratch pattern in the floor because the mineral particles are tougher and do not wear down as fast. When staining a hardwood floor, it's crucial to make sure the stain is dry prior to applying the finish. If you happen to hit a nail, change out your belt. This is even more true for older floors because of the hardness. What Does ‘Baseline Moisture Content’ Mean? Aaron Schaalma is owner/operator at Signature Custom Hardwood Flooring LLC in Omro, Wis., and is NWFACP-certified in Sand & Finish. To make sure you give yourself enough time between each coat of so! Doesn ’ t any “ Google it ” advice in my blog sweep or vacuum sanded. 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