Sanding floorboards

**Paddy** · 30 July 2011, 14:31

Originally posted by suityou01 View Post

Anyone done this? SY02 wants the floorboards sanded and varnished in our living room.

I want to use my orbital sander rather than hire a floor sander (I'm tight I is). I read on tinterweb that other folks have really fooked their floors up with these industrial hoover shaped sanders.

Is slow and gentle with an orbital sander a more sensible way to go or will I still be at it by Christmas?

Don't even think about using an orbital sander. Use the proper floor one. You will also need to fill all the cracks etc with putty or flexible filler. If you do upstairs rooms, it will make walking for the noisy for the downstairs.

I think that sanded floor boards only works for old buildings.

**Moscow Mule** · 30 July 2011, 14:33

Do not use an orbital sander.

Do not hire a floor sander yourself.

Do get the pros in if you want a decent job. Sanding floors is a ball ache.

**rsingh** · 30 July 2011, 14:43

When standing wood, you should sand along the grain. An orbital sander would be useless for this.

To do the job properly, you will need three grades of sand paper and some lager. Plenty of it. This will be the costliest part of the exercise. Anyway, get the kids cracking, there's plenty of weekend left.

**wobbegong** · 30 July 2011, 16:06

Come on suity, work smart, not hard.

**castoff101** · 30 July 2011, 16:14

and save the saw dust for the filling between the floor boards... mix it with some pva to make a paste and push the mixture into those gaps.

**woohoo** · 30 July 2011, 19:39

Hire a proper sander, and buy a fair amount of sand paper (you can usually return what you don't use).
Go over every inch of your floor boards and hammer any nails in that you see using a nail punch. If you don't do this the nails will rip the sand paper and its ball ache changing it.

Start sanding with the rough sand-paper then work your way to the finer sandpaper, so you have a fairly smooth finish. Once you have finished then you should wait a fair while for the dust to settle before you varnish. Or you can risk it and use a damp sponge to wipe down the ceiling and walls then varnish. oh before you varnish, use white spirits to clean the floor of any dust (after hoovering). In between varnishes, use a block with sandpaper (120 i think) and gently go over the floor boards by hand, then use the white spirits again before varnishing.

I used ronsel diamond hard varnish, I think you can get away with 3 coats but if you have dogs then go for 5.

I lost nearly a stone in weight doing my entire house, not sure I would do it again. However, technically it’s pretty easy just hard graft.

Good luck.

Sanding floorboards