How Do You Know Floors Are Sanded Enough
Step i: Determine your dust sequence.
Y'all'll sand your floor multiple times with multiple grits of sandpaper.
Sand multiple times
Did you know that refinishing a floor ways that y'all'll sand over your flooring multiple times?
Some start-fourth dimension sanders believe that they'll but utilize i grit of sandpaper and sand over their floors ane time and, voila!, the floors volition be clean, flat and smoothen.
But the distressing truth is that sanding is not like renting a Rug Physician—information technology volition take at least 4 passes, each with a progressively effectively level of sandpaper, to truly refinish about old floors. And the hardest thing you're going to exercise on the project is to determine the perfect grit starting pass for your floor. Just nosotros can assistance you figure it out.
Most people who have never sanded a floor earlier presume that every floor is sanded with the aforementioned grit sequence.
If we had a dollar for every customer who insisted that all floors only 3 grit passes nosotros would have lots of dollars. But every floor is different and the condition of your floor volition decide how you sand it.
And you tin't first sanding until y'all figure out the right starting grit.
Pete's carries SEVEN different sanding grits for sanding floors, simply not every flooring needs all 7 grits.
The more damaged your floor and the harder the forest species, the coarser your first grit pass will exist.
Grit guidelines
Here is a rough guideline for what the various grits practice:
12-grit (bachelor for edgers only)
Starting dust for floors with heavy adhesive or multiple coats of floor paint.
sixteen-dust
Starting grit for floors with heavy shellac finishes or unmarried layers of paint and sometimes for very one-time, difficult maple floors (this is an unfortunate only common starting dust here in the Minneapolis/St. Paul MN area.
24-grit
Starting dust for floors that all the same have terminate or haven't been sanded for 30 years or more. 24-grit is the recommended starting grit if there is sander flaw in the flooring from previous sandings or obvious pes-soiled areas where old finishes have worn through to wood.
36-grit
Starting grit for floors that are newly installed or accept very minimal terminate. Every trace of stop should be gone from your floor by the time you cease with this grit.
60-grit
Never a starting dust – threescore-grit takes out 36-dust scratch, but it does not remove woods or finish.
80-grit
Takes out threescore-grit scratch, simply does not remove forest or finish –Final grit laissez passer for most American hardwood floors.
100-dust
Takes out 60- or eighty-grit scratch. Final grit for birch and maple floors and any flooring that will be stained.
Appraise honestly, sand appropriately
The virtually common mistake we see in floors washed by exercise-it-yourselfers is timid sanding: a floor that still looks dirty because it wasn't sanded aggressively enough.
And then, the more honest your assessment of the condition of your flooring, the more willing you will to accept how much work it will accept to renew your flooring.
36grit is your testing grit
36-grit is your testing grit – information technology will aid yous determine the finest starting dust that will piece of work for your floor
If y'all recollect your floor is in pretty good shape, put a 36-dust belt on the drum sander and sand a small exam expanse, about 4' 10 iv' (pick an area of the floor that is in rough shape, not 1 of the spots that still looks good).
Cease the sander and advisedly inspect the expanse you just sanded.
If that section of floor looks completely bare and clean, even at the edges of the boards, then yous have successfully determined that the grit sequence for sanding your flooring is 36-grit, 60-grit and 80-grit.
If the area you tested is not completely clean, then you have determined that your floor will need MORE than just that 36-threescore-80grit formula.
And then, pick a new spot on the floor (again, preferably a spot in bad shape) and endeavour a more than aggressive test. For example, if the starting time test left simply minor amounts of cease at the very edges or centers of the boards, then your side by side test might exist to cross-cutting at 36grit followed by a direct pass at 36-grit (read our "Magical Exception of Cross-Cut" below).
Look at your sanded test expanse. Is it bare and make clean? If yes, and then yay! You've determined that your sanding sequence is 36grit cross-cut, 36-grit straight, 60-grit and 80-grit.
Most floors in the Minneapolis/St. Paul surface area were installed prior to 1950 and will need a 24grit first when using a 110v sander.
Think your floor is in bad shape? Don't bother with the 36grit test – begin testing with a 24-grit – 36-grit combination.
What if it fails that test? Go along testing with more aggressive combinations until you find ane that gives you clean wood by the time you achieve 36-grit.
Don't bother testing 60-grit or 80-grit – they are not designed to remove end or wood fiber. We already know that they volition fairly remove scratch from 36-grit, so limit your testing to figuring out your starting point.
The magical exception of cross-cutting
If you have the reverse—a severely scarred, uneven, water-damaged or painted flooring—then you may want to consider not only starting with a coarse grit, but sanding at an bending to the grain.
This is an important exception to the rule of always sanding with the grain of the forest. It but applies during the crude sand stage, but it is a very efficient way to speed the process of cleaning and leveling an former flooring.
Because of wood's natural tendency to shred and splinter when it is sanded off-grain, the sander tin remove more wood with the same corporeality of effort when positioned at an bending. The angle does not need to be drastic; sanding just 10-xv° off parallel is plenty.
The downside of using this procedure is that, afterwards you lot brand an entire pass at an angle, you must follow information technology with another laissez passer parallel to the grain at the same grit. And so, if you practice a 24-grit cross-cut pass, your sanding sequence would be 24 diagonal > 24 straight > 36 > 60 > 80.
Newly installed floors tin be crude-sanded with 36-grit parallel to the grain.
The dominion to remember is that, no matter what grit y'all choose as your starting point, y'all must sand, in order, with every grit that is finer than your starting indicate.
And so, if you start with sixteen-grit, you cannot jump to 36grit; you must go sixteen > 24 > 36 > 60 > 80 on both machines.
If you start at 24-grit, you cannot jump to sixty; you must go 24 > 36 > threescore > lxxx on both machines
Source: https://peteshardwoodfloors.com/diy-techniques/sanding-floors/the-sanding-process/
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