Hi folks, I m new to the forum and woodwork in general so apologies in advance for my ignorance on the topic.
Having just purchased our first home, my partner and I are looking to restore the original wooden floor in the reception and living room. I ve been watching a few videos on youtube and have a basic understanding of the process involved. I understand that both a drum sander and edge sander are required and that renting is the most obvious choice, but would anybody recommend looking at a used floor sander as opposed to renting? We hope at some point to restore the floors throughout the rest of the house also, so buying may prove more cost effective. Can anybody offer any advice on this and wooden floor restoration in general?

- Chippy344

Not much response to this so far. I hope somebody can help out. Are these the kind of sanders that I need to be looking at?

 

We just had some of our floors sanded and I watched carefully because we have more to do. It is quite a process but I believe it can be done and I will probably do so.

I noticed that along the edge by the wall, it was not very easy for the man to get it level there which made it a little hard to replace the shoe as it wanted to tip a little toward the inside of the room. You may want to experiment in a closet or somewhere not so noticeable.

Here are some videos that you may want to watch. I know that I will watch them again when it comes time. Also, choose your finish wisely. larry
Welcome to the forum!

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sanding+hardwood+floors

 

As both an avid DIYer and builder, I would suggest this is not a task to be taken lightly. A good floor sander is a very expensive machine and (according to my hardwood refinisher) the less expensive units can tear your floor up PDQ. Easy to over-sand an area and commit yourself to a lot more work to correct.

 

Most of the good floor sanders are 240volt machines and are not DIY type equipment.
My dad was a floor finisher for 50 years. I grew up with saw dust in my hair.
The edge sanders are also called spinners. The tricky part is avoid sanding across grain.
Another tool my dad used on every job was a "Red Devil" floor scraper. He would scrape the areas the spinner could not get into. And also the buffer. His had a 15" disk; very dangerous if it gets away from you.
The overall process was to sand with coarse grit paper, then sand with medium grit paper. Next he would go over the entire floor and "set" any nails that had been exposed and fill the holes with wood putty. Then fine sand and scrape the corners. At this point he would mix the fine dust from the lat sanding pass with shellac and denatured alcohol and rub the entire floor with this filler using burlap. When this dries you put a bristle pad on the buffer and a steel wool pad under that and buff off the filler coat. Now the floor is ready for finish after a good vacuuming. Some of the newer water based finishes won't work with steel wool buffing but there are alternative abrasives for those finishes. Anyway, after a couple coats of finish he would coat the floor with Johnsons paste wax and buff it off with a lambs wool bonnet on the buffer. All this was a three to four day process and the resulting floor looked like a mirror. Very proud of the work my dad did. He's been gone for almost 20 years now, but there are hundreds of homes in this town with floors he finished still in use. I live in one of them myself.

 

We just had some of our floors sanded and I watched carefully because we have more to do. It is quite a process but I believe it can be done and I will probably do so.

I noticed that along the edge by the wall, it was not very easy for the man to get it level there which made it a little hard to replace the shoe as it wanted to tip a little toward the inside of the room. You may want to experiment in a closet or somewhere not so noticeable.

Here are some videos that you may want to watch. I know that I will watch them again when it comes time. Also, choose your finish wisely. larry
Welcome to the forum!

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sanding+hardwood+floors

- ohtimberwolf

Thanks for sharing the video ohtimberwolf. That proved really helpful. I'll watch a few more I think before I get stuck in.

 

As both an avid DIYer and builder, I would suggest this is not a task to be taken lightly. A good floor sander is a very expensive machine and (according to my hardwood refinisher) the less expensive units can tear your floor up PDQ. Easy to over-sand an area and commit yourself to a lot more work to correct.

- RogR

Most of the good floor sanders are 240volt machines and are not DIY type equipment.
My dad was a floor finisher for 50 years. I grew up with saw dust in my hair.
The edge sanders are also called spinners. The tricky part is avoid sanding across grain.
Another tool my dad used on every job was a "Red Devil" floor scraper. He would scrape the areas the spinner could not get into. And also the buffer. His had a 15" disk; very dangerous if it gets away from you.
The overall process was to sand with coarse grit paper, then sand with medium grit paper. Next he would go over the entire floor and "set" any nails that had been exposed and fill the holes with wood putty. Then fine sand and scrape the corners. At this point he would mix the fine dust from the lat sanding pass with shellac and denatured alcohol and rub the entire floor with this filler using burlap. When this dries you put a bristle pad on the buffer and a steel wool pad under that and buff off the filler coat. Now the floor is ready for finish after a good vacuuming. Some of the newer water based finishes won t work with steel wool buffing but there are alternative abrasives for those finishes. Anyway, after a couple coats of finish he would coat the floor with Johnsons paste wax and buff it off with a lambs wool bonnet on the buffer. All this was a three to four day process and the resulting floor looked like a mirror. Very proud of the work my dad did. He s been gone for almost 20 years now, but there are hundreds of homes in this town with floors he finished still in use. I live in one of them myself.

- crank49

Thanks for all the comprehensive advice folks. Rest assured that it has all been duly noted and I certainly won't be undertaking this task as light

 

I worked for ~8 years in the tool rental at the big orange box. Check with any stores near you that have rental depts, they sell their used equipment after 2 or 3 years. You can get some pretty good deals on them.

Seeing as you've never done this before, I'd suggest you stay away from the "drum type" sanders, they are the most aggressive sanders out there and you can do quite a bit of damage before you realize it.

The easiest (in my opinion) are the "pad style" sanders. The 'float" and you just "steer" them where you want it to go. All you have to do is get the feel for keeping the pad level with the floor and let the weight of the sander do the work. You can get pretty darn close to the walls and "almost but not quite" into the corners. Almost no need for the edger sander, you can get near the walls and into the corners with a 1/2 sheet (or a 1/4 sheet) hand sander

Here's what the pad sander looks like.

If you buy, you can do the whole house at YOUR convenience, and keep the sander in good condition you can probably re-coup your money back when you're done with it.

Good luck and Welcome to LJs.

 

I've used a pad sander - works fine if you only need to take off the old finish, but if the floors are in rough shape and need any leveling I think you'll find one to be very frustrating. I ended up taking it back to the renal store and getting a drum sander.

 

Yes, the pad sander isn't near as aggressive, but if you owned the sander, you wouldn't have to be in a hurry to get it back to the rental store on time. You could take your sweet time and still get the job done.