Hello Everyone
I need a little help so if some one could give me some advice I would appreciate it. I am refinishing a bathroom in my home and part of the project is to sand and refinish the floor. The house is an Ontario Cottage built around 1860 with tongue and groove flooring. Either pine or fir, I’m not sure which, but, soft wood at any rate. The planks are about 4″ wide and in some places the spaces between the boards have open up leaving gaps. I seem to recall hearing that you can fill these gaps with the dust from sanding and then stain and finish the floor. Has anyone ever heard of this technique? How do you keep the sawdust from coming out of the cracks and ruining the finish? Finally if this doesn’t work how do you fill those cracks? I appreciate any help you can give me . Thanks Robb
Replies
You can use putty to fill the gaps, and I suppose you can make your own putty out of sawdust, although I don't know the exact recipe. Either way, after the putty dries, and you walk on the floor, it will crumble and flakes of putty will work their way out. It will be a never ending mess. You sweep it up one day, and more crumbles out the next. I've heard that with real bad floors with lots of gaps, you can put a natural fiber rope into the gaps. Just wedge it in there. It would probably look silly with just a few gaps here and there, but I've heard it looks pretty good on a floor with lots of gaps.
On my floor, I just left the gaps. They add character.
Maybe someone else has a better idea.
Good luck.
Are these gaps real wide?
Hmmmmmmmm. Did you say 1860.?
Is there a new cieling on the lower floor? No?
I'm thinking someone around 1865 , spilled his pocket change and there are coins to be found. This is a great excuse to tear up the floor(or at least a portion of it, don't waste any time where the radiators were put in later or that neww wiring, those joist bays have already been cleaned out) and butt the boards tighter together. Hey, you might fing that 1860 CC GOLD dollar, worth $7, 498 in GOOD to FINE condition.
Ian should be along with the exact recipe. You save the fine sawdust to mix with linseed oil and varnish. it makes a slurry to trowel in and then you resand the surface to take off the excess
Believe me, it doesn't crumble and fallout unless the edges of your floorboards are fgone and you don't vacumn well for bonding. Or if the floorbaords are loose and floating around. The stuff is more like a glue than just filler. My guy has done iot for us and it works fine.
Another way is to wait 'till after you get the varnbish down and then use butcher's wax to fill and super finish, but that marries you to a wax floor.
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