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refinishing an old hardwood floor-

wf1 | Posted in Construction Techniques on April 21, 2005 03:11am

hi guys, we bought a house built in 1928 with oak flooring that needs to be refinished, but there is a small problem I believe this process has been done at least twice already judging from the thickness of wood at the cold air returns about 7/16th and the two different colors also I believe they had used hot wax as to stain and shellac which is my real question I do not think I can sand this wood any deeper {it already squeaks} character my wife calls it not being able to sneak around I call it anyway I have been told to screen it similiar to just buffing and apply poly over would this work? we will just have to live with the different colors. I am new to the board so be gentle

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  1. Piffin | Apr 21, 2005 03:55am | #1

    Depends who told you to just screen and pour. Was it a drunk neighbor who thinks he knows everything or was it a floor refinishing professional WHO HAS LOOKED AT IT??

    To avoid replacing it, this is probably the way to go, but it could even be a waste of time too.

    A dark finish colour stain or Polyshades by minwax will hide a lot. I'm not a great fan of the Polyshades product, but this salvage kind of work and DIY work is what it was developed for so It is worth considering.

    The "hot wax" thing could be a problem tho. If it is deeply waxed, there is not much you can do other than use wax stripper, and do another coloured floor wax every six months - maybe. Like I say, I'm not there.

    A couple of other floor specialists here - Ian or Goldhiller or Ken Fischer have a lot to offer too, and if you use the search function, you may find a link to a flooring forum in the threads where this has been disdcussed befiore.

     

     

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    1. wf1 | Apr 22, 2005 03:24am | #4

      piffin- I read your comments all the time and have come to trust your knowledge and wisdom thanks for the skinny on some threads as for the experts... I have gotten so many differing opinions I am not sure of the right approach and these are floor technicians in this neck of the woods and only one understood about hot wax coloring and could not answer on using poly of course my expertise comes from ####fhb article I will pursue this further

  2. alwaysoverbudget | Apr 21, 2005 06:32am | #2

    i know your not wanting to sand, but you might check into the orbital type that takes a square pad. they are very non agressive and i think if you sanded with one for a week you wouldn't take off a 1/16 of wood. they do a great job, but they are slow....... larry

    hand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.

    1. wf1 | Apr 22, 2005 03:05am | #3

      ao my wife likes the project to be done before I even make an overview plan. thanks for the input wf1

  3. User avater
    goldhiller | Apr 23, 2005 04:43pm | #5

    Sorry, but I'm not following all of this very well.

    There are brief fleeting mentions/references of hot wax, stain, shellac, the possibility of using polyurethane over the existing ??? without any sanding........etc.

    But the bottom line is I'm unable to put the brief references to these substances into a cohesive picture that I can wrap my head around.

    Without having a better grip on exactly what has gone on with these floors ........about the only thing I can offer is.......... don't try putting poly over wax or where there is any possibility of wax residues. It won't be able to bond well and will consequently peel. I wouldn't personally try to use any film-type finish over a wax contaminated floor.

    Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
    1. wf1 | Apr 24, 2005 03:07am | #6

      that was pretty much what I was waiting to hear that poly would not adhere. when I know just abit more than the expert doing the application I tend to get cautious. what has happened is the floors have been sanded down to about 7/16ths from 3/4s and I did some tests on spots where water had been sitting denatured alcohol did not lift the finish so I canceled out shellac as a finish the water spot appeared to lift up the finish thus I am lead to think this 1928 built house had the oak hot waxed finish. so not being able to sand the wood to much deeper one finisher said to have it screened which I understood to be just like buffing the surface but not removing the stain in the wood confused yet? but he wanted to apply poly over that and that is when I got confused. so how does one just put a finish on wax I know that I am stuck with the current shades l/r gunstock and d/r andkitchen honey oak. thank you for replying I now have a new can of worms wf1

      1. User avater
        goldhiller | Apr 24, 2005 04:57am | #7

        Depending upon which rooms are involved here, you may be able to use a homemade penetrating oil finish. If either room is a kitchen or a bathroom, I wouldn't recommend it unless you have cautious and fastidious habits in these rooms and would wipe up any water spills or similar…virtually immediately. If you think this oil finish might be appropriate, then I think it might be doable in your situation…….with some diligent preparation.Anyway, my notion goes something like this….and notion it is because I'm not there and can't see the floors in question to say with any greater degree of certainty. If you can remove the vast majority of the wax that's deep in the wood by now, I think the oil finish will be able to meld with any remaining wax. But you want as little wax remaining as you can reasonably achieve. Removal would be via several applications of mineral spirits, allowing that to sit for a bit, scrubbing some with either Scotch-Brite pads or one of the finer grades of steel wool (#00 or #000) and then mopping up the results with cloths/rags. Repeat several times to allow the MS to penetrate as deeply as possible, dissolve the wax and float much of it to the surface so you can wipe it upThen once all the remaining mineral spirits has evaporarted and the wood is again dry, you would apply the penetrating oil finish that Ian described in this thread…........and in the same manner that he describes. http://forums.prospero.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=54148.3If you get the bulk of the old wax out of the wood, the oil should then be able to find enough "unclaimed" wood to penetrate well enough to do it's task and the contained turpentine should dissolve any remaining wax and incorporate it right into the finish. That's the game plan anyway. I'd still use the coat of Johnson's that Ian suggested over the top and of course the same buffing procedures that he recommends.I'm thinking from here that if a colored wax was used on your darkest floor, that the color of the wood should lighten/shift as you remove the old wax with the MS. Hopefully so, anyway. No telling exactly what the end result might be color-wise and only some experimenting will answer that. If you're really lucky, both floors might turn out about the same color. This would all be much easier if a guy could also safely sand off a little wood, but that doesn't sound likely. And that alone might not give you a surface that would be safe to use a film-type finish on. If there's a heavy wax finish on the floor now, even sanding it wouldn't guarantee that you wouldn't have some bonding problems along the side edges of each piece of flooring. I've seen situations like this before where the cured varnish starting letting go/peeling off….because of waxes remaining down there between those board edges.I think if you click on Ian's name in that thread, you'll find a link to his website where you'll find pics of some floors with various finishes and other finishing info. I don't think there's anything there directly pertinent to your situation though. Maybe.

        Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.Edited 4/23/2005 10:00 pm ET by GOLDHILLER

        Edited 4/24/2005 12:31 am ET by GOLDHILLER

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