The process for sanding a floor by hand would be, as a general rule, to start on a 40 grit sandpaper and work your way up to 100 or 120 grit paper to leave a fine finish. It is important to keep any sander moving so it does not dig into or burn the floor.
The palm sander is definitely the most common tool for sanding a wooden floor by hand. Palm sanders also oscillate, however, unlike orbital random sanders, the pad of the palm sander is fixed straight.
There's really no getting around it – sanding your floors is hard work and physically tiring. What is this? When you first start sanding you'll almost instantly see a huge difference in your floor but once you've removed most of the varnish and dirt progress will seem so much slower.
If you're using both the electric sander and the edger in 140 square-foot floor space, it will take you roughly 5 hours to do three sanding passes. Another thing you must take into account is how old your house is. If yours is 50 years old or more, you'll need extra time to complete it.
Orbital sander uses and advantages
Orbital sanders are best for floors that require a light to medium sanding. If you need to prep a floor for a new top coat of clear finish, an orbital sander is the right machine.
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 is more about patience than anything else.
An average-sized room (bedroom, lounge or hallway for instance) should take a day to sand and a further day to hand finish and varnish/wax or oil. However unforeseen circumstances such as repairs to the main body of the floor or the replacement of some boards may mean the job will take longer.
What is this? If you have really, really uneven floorboards, you should start by sanding (with the large drum sander) diagonally to the floorboards to even the floor out and then move on to sanding in the direction of the boards. As a general rule, you always sand with the grain of the wood!
For a floor in better condition, you should get three P80 grit sheets. These numbers are for an average sized room, so if the room is exceptionally large, you should consider increasing the amount of sandpaper to four or five sheets.
Well the simple fact is that hand sanding has many benefits over power sanding that can often be overlooked. Firstly, a final hand sand before finishing will always give a better finish than ending with a power sander as, no matter how fine a grit you use, there will always be scratch marks left by the power tool.
Wrap sandpaper around scraps of foam pipe insulation to sand medium-size coves. For large concave surfaces, use scraps of foam swimming noodles. These are easy to cut with a bread knife. Stick paper to the inside surface of pipe insulation to make a sanding pad for dowels and other cylindrical shapes.
Sand and a piece of leather or cloth, Pumice (a porous vulcanic Rock), Walnut Shells, Rottenstone (similar to Pumice), Wood Shavings, Corn Cobs, a Wood File, Scraping, Burnishing, or even building a primitive sanding tool are good alternatives to sandpaper.
The better ventilation you have in the room, the faster the finish will get dry. Clean – Pre-cleaning your floor is as important as cleaning after each stage of the sanding process. You do not want dust and dirt particles scratching the bare wood or staying trapped in the finish forever, right?
You can leave the baseboards in place unless you're planning to replace them. You need a pristinely clean floor before sanding, so sweep it and then dust mop it to get up all debris and dust. Make any necessary repairs to gouges and cracks in the floor before sanding.
You want to give the new finish time to harden and cure. We recommend waiting a minimum of 24 hours before you walk on your floors– and 48 hours is even better. Start with socks only and keep pets off the floors for a few days.
Turning the Floor sander on and off is done by pushing the buttons on the front of the handle, left is on and right is off. Make sure you have a good grip of the floor sander before you turn it on, as it will try and pull away from you.
Close all doors and windows to prevent the dust from spreading to other areas of the house. For added protection, use masking tape or plastic sheeting to seal gaps around doors and windows. Cover air vents and ducts with plastic sheeting or disposable air filters to prevent dust from entering the HVAC system.
Sanding your hardwood floors takes three sessions with progressively lighter grit sandpaper. To begin, use a coarse 30-40 grit, then a medium 50-60 grit, and finally a fine 80-100 grit.
Hardwood flooring can be re-sanded up to 10 times, depending on how bad the floor is and how skilled the person doing the sanding is. It costs about $2.50 per square foot to refinish a floor, plus $50 an hour for patching and thresholds.
If you wish to ensure your floors are pristine, then having them sanded and polished every 5 – 7 years is the best way to achieve that. It general though, you can get away with having them done every 10 – 15 years.
Anytime you need to sand your hardwood floor down to the base, you will be creating a lot of noise and dust. The amount of dust that makes it into the air and on all of your furniture will largely depend on the machine you are using.