Sanding the floor

Grinding a wooden floor is used to obtain a perfectly flat surface of a board or parquet. Moreover, this technology is used for both old and just made flooring. In the first case, renovation or updating is carried out, and in the second, careful leveling and preparation for the final (finish) treatment with protective agents: wax, oil, varnish. Let's figure out how the floor is polished, what is needed for this.

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What is grinding for?

Any wood flooring is assembled from many elements. In the process of installing new parquet dies or large slats, it is quite difficult to achieve a flat surface. The most common phenomena are scratches, minor defects, areas with sapwood.

Almost the same set of problems is found in the old flooring, used for more than one year. Polishing of a wooden floor is called to eliminate all these defects, the essence of which is polishing the surface and preparing it for wax, oil, varnish or any other decorative and protective coating.

So, the goals of grinding are as follows:

• Elimination of surface defects.
• Leveling the floor.
• Eliminate old paintwork and dirt.

Properly sanded wood floors is not an easy task. For this, a number of hand tools or electrical devices are used. However, the secret to quality work is to gradually reduce the grain size of the grinding head. That is, at first rough processing with a grain size of 40-60 units is realized, and then thin - 100-120, 140-180 units. Following this simple rule will make it possible to get an excellent result even in difficult cases. For example, if on a wooden flooring there are many surface damages or differences between planks of more than 3 mm.

Grinding of a wooden floor should not be carried out in the following cases:

• The distance between the lamellas or strips is more than 0.7 mm. These are very large gaps, which are very difficult to fill with sealant or wipe with putty. Often, to eliminate such defects, it is advisable to sort out the floor with the simultaneous processing of each individual element, replace damaged areas, or seal the canvas with bars that fit the gap size. Of course, this is an expensive and time-consuming work, but without such preliminary preparation, the floor should not be polished.
• The abrasion depth of the most loaded sections (passage places) is more than 4 mm. In this case, it will be necessary to remove a sufficiently large layer from the rest of the floor. It is worth considering that the useful thickness of the strips (depth from the castle ridge to the surface) is 3-7 mm, so it will be more advisable to completely replace the damaged area. The same applies to areas with deep cracks, scratches, chips, dents and other defects.
• Swelling of the plank or parquet floor due to contact with water, the appearance of rotten, moldy areas. If the wood is loose, then grinding it will not work in any case. Therefore, such a coating must first be replaced, at least locally.

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How to polish wood floors?

Processing of a new wooden coating and restoration of the old begins with the selection of the necessary tool. In this case, it is necessary to focus on two basic conditions: financial capabilities and the amount of work.

Specialists perform floor polishing in two ways.

Manual way

This method is used in small areas and is the cheapest. However, the work is long and laborious.

To sand a wooden floor in this way, you will need the following:

• Emery paper roll or sheet with a grain size module of 40-120 units. The required amount is determined empirically, because not only the floor area, but also the presence of defects on the surface, the degree of contamination and even the strength of the lacquer coating and the wood itself play a role.
• A wood or PVC grater, often referred to as an emery paper holder. Even low-cost plastic products are suitable for grinding small areas. And for larger volumes of work, it is better to choose wooden products or from more rigid PVC with a rubber handle.
• Hand cycle or scraper used to remove old paintwork or too dirty areas. It usually consists of a wooden or plastic handle and a steel plate.

Important! With manual, as with machine grinding, do not forget about personal protective equipment - a respirator mask, protective glasses.

Machine

It is suitable for work on both small and solid objects. It is distinguished by excellent workmanship and high speed of work. All thanks to the use of a set of various devices for the main and inaccessible areas.

Important! Of course, such equipment is not cheap, however, there is a way out - rent at a very reasonable cost.

The following types of equipment are used for this method:

• Drum or belt grinder. This is a complex apparatus for preliminary scrapping, as well as rough grinding of the coating from small-format parquet dies or boards. Grain abrasive - 40-80 units. There is a small difference between the tape and drum apparatus: for the first, a cutting belt of abrasive skin is used, moving between two rollers that move. In the second, a piece of sanding tape glued to a specific drum size is used, which is mounted on a cylindrical shaft.
• Surface grinding machine. It can be single-disc with a mono-nozzle of sandpaper or three-disc, equipped with three abrasive wheels with a grain size of 100-340 units. This type of product is intended for a very thin, literally jewelry finish grinding of cork and wood surfaces. It is also used for intermediate leveling of varnish. Single-disc models are simpler, but three-disc models are characterized by the fact that each element rotates around its own axis, and all three revolve around one common center.
• Single disc surface grinding machine type “boot”. Its purpose is the grinding of wooden coatings in hard-to-reach places, for example, on stairs and under radiators, along walls or in corners. The grain size modulus is 40-320 units. Both professional and household appliances are equipped with convenient rotary handles, as well as the ability to connect dust collectors or vacuum cleaners.
• Angle grinders. They include grinders, orbital (eccentric) and vibration polishing machines. Also in this group include small tape devices of a household type. Such devices are recommended for thin and rough processing of wooden surfaces. Very convenient for working in hard-to-reach places and in small areas. Some models are equipped with a motor speed and power controller, as well as a special adapter for connecting a dust bag or vacuum cleaner.

Important! In a good way, in addition to the above devices, you should buy or rent a construction vacuum cleaner in advance, as well as buy a set of different components - belts, abrasive wheels, nozzles of different grain sizes, scissors.

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Floor grinding technology

Sanding a wooden floor is not so simple. This is a rather complicated and time-consuming process, which includes six main stages.

Coating preparation

When preparing the floor before grinding, the following should be considered:

• The new flooring must be checked for defects such as dropped knots, sticking out nails, non-glued dies, too wide gaps, chips. Old parquet is checked for overall integrity, fixing strength and damage.
• To eliminate defects, parquet glue and putty masses (special liquids or fine sawdust mixed with PVA glue) are often used.
• It is better not to use sealants and elastic grouts, since they do not gain the necessary strength and only “clog” the abrasive nozzle.
• In order not to damage the disc or drum of the machine, all other parts should be “sunk” into the floor by at least 3 mm.
• Damaged strips should be replaced with new ones, and not glued - fasten with glue and hardware.
• Dust and debris must be removed with a construction vacuum cleaner or a damp cloth.

Primary grinding

First of all, you need to use a tape or drum type machine as the most efficient and productive. This stage is also called scraping or rough grinding of the surface, since an abrasive material with a grain size of 40-60 units is used here. In this case, all scratches, bumps, dirt and old paintwork are removed.

Important! Professional devices make it possible to adjust the clamping force of the abrasive. This is extremely convenient, since this ensures a uniform fit of the nozzle to the floor surface, which means that more high-quality work is carried out.

On the basis of a tape or glued strip, carefully fix and carry out deep processing:

• With decking - from wall to wall along the windows. With this installation, lateral movement is permitted only when the apparatus is turned around in vertical walling.
• On the floor, the Christmas tree is diagonally moving evenly over the entire surface.
• When laying a wicker, palace parquet or shield - crosswise without highlighting any separate sections.
• On the art floor - circular movements, twisted in a spiral.

Important! The process of grinding a wooden floor is quite dusty, so drafts are an extremely undesirable phenomenon. Be sure to close the front doors and all windows in the workroom.

The master periodically checks the condition of the abrasive nozzle and, if necessary, change the worn part to a new one. This measure is necessary to avoid the occurrence of stripes and individual untreated sections.

Upon completion of the main work, corners and other hard-to-reach spots should be worked on. For rough grinding of the floor with an orbital machine, grinder or “boot” you will need circular nozzles of the same grain size - 40-60 units.

Fine grinding

The stage of final leveling of the surface is carried out by surface grinding one- or three-disk devices. In this case, all small dents, bumps, cracks and other defects that are on the floor boards are finally removed.

Important! For effective work, it is desirable to use circles of different grain sizes - 60, 80, 100 and 120. In some cases, even abrasive discs with a particle size module of 180 or even 240 are used.

Again, work is carried out along the fibers. As the abrasion nozzles need to be replaced with new ones. Steps, corners and other difficult sections are processed with a “boot” or angle grinder with circles of the same grain size.

Important! After finishing work, the surface must be vacuumed again or wiped with a soft, damp cloth. Dust and fine wood suspension must be completely removed.

Putty clearances and minor defects

After leveling, you can begin puttying. For this, ready-made pasty formulations on wood or special putty fluids are used.

Important! Many experts prefer the latter, because when mixed with sawdust from the processed wooden floor, a mass of identical shade is obtained, perfectly filling all the voids that are available, while being quite plastic and not cracking over time.

The mixture is applied using a stainless spatula, which makes it possible to fill the pores, cutting off simultaneously “raised” small wood fibers.

Finish grinding

Before waxing, oiling or varnishing it is necessary to polish the surface well again. This work is carried out after drying the putty and its polymerization.

It is realized using a surface grinding machine and angle grinder with nozzles with a grain size of 120-160 units. The direction of the fibers is the same - along the fibers. After treatment, the floor should be vacuumed again well.

As a result, everything superfluous is completely removed from the surface and it becomes perfectly smooth.

Primer and topcoat

Even after processing with putty, the floor is recommended to be primed or treated with special impregnations with a bioprotective, fungicidal or tinting effect.

Important! If you used a ready-made color putty, then be prepared for the fact that the surface will be mixed. Putty fluids that were mixed with fine wood parquet dust are free from this drawback.

After the primer has dried, a first coat of wax, oil or varnish is applied. Next, an intermediate finest grinding of the floor or polishing (wax or oil) is carried out using surface grinding or orbital machines with nozzles, the granularity of which does not exceed 140 units.

Important! Before applying the final varnish or oil-wax layer, the surface must be vacuumed again or wiped with a damp cloth.

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Stock footage

Thus, polishing a wooden floor will have to spend a lot of effort, time, as well as finance. But it is this technology that makes it possible in a few days to get a smooth and beautiful floor without the smallest defects.