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PlicketyCat
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 00:48
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We have 1x6 spruce t&g flooring that we're about to install. It's locally sourced from the mill in town, so not perfectly uniform or planed, but that's ok since our cabin is... um... "rustic".
Every reference I've found says you need to rent a big drum sander to even out the height variants between planks before finishing. Well, that's really not an option for us. We're nearly 4 hours from town, and a mile off the road. We went through hell renting, transporting, and powering the insulation blower earlier and that was during the winter when the ground was hard and we could sled the (much lighter) machine over the snow. Even with two generators, the 15 amp draw nearly burned them up, we were blowing fuses right and left. I'm pretty confident that the drum sander would kill us and our generators. Besides, those big drum sanders might be a teeny bit too aggressive for 1" softwood anyway, I could just see it turning the floor planks into veneer in a matter of seconds.
So, I'm wondering, could I just use my hand belt sander and orbital sander? I know it probably wouldn't be as nicely level and smooth as the big drum sander, but would the unevenness be totally irritatingly obvious? We have maybe 700 sq ft of finishable floor between the main floor and loft, would that take forever with a hand sander?
Has anyone else finished a softwood (or even hardwood) floor with a hand sander instead of one of the behemoths? Are you happy with the end result? If not, why? Was it just aesthetics, or is there a functional problem (snagging, hard to clean, etc)? How long did it take you? How many cases of sanding belts should I get? ;)
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Erins#1Mom
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 09:11
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How will it look if you don't sand it? You are going for the rustic look.
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Malamute
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 10:14 - Edited by: Malamute
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I did my small portable cabin with my orbital sander. It wasnt too bad, but after getting the first coat of varathane finish on it, realized I needed much more aggressve paper. I found some stuff that was about 40 or 50 grit, and supposed to be longer lasting. Will go check the name in a it, it's out in my work area. It should work decently on your spruce, as it's much faster cutting than the regular sanding discs that I had (60 or 80 grit?)
I used a hand belt sander on an oak floor (1 room) in the house in town I lived in. It wasn't too bad, other than the floor had glue on it from someone installing carpet squares on it. It takes longer than the floor sanders, but should work for what you're doing. Get more belts (or discs) than you think you'll need.
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Scott_T
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 11:01
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Hey Plickety Cat your hand belt sander will be fine for the job. I have not done a full size floor but have done some repair and it was fine. You'll have to "calibrate" your touch and the feel with each grit and be careful near the base boards. Otherwise can be done but will take quite bit longer. If you have a shop vac (with a high quality pleated filter) to hook to it I would recommend for dust handling. Good luck!
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PlicketyCat
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 15:34
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The floor boards aren't planed totally smooth so I'm worried about splinters; but (I don't think) I'm too concerned with small height differences as long as I'm not tripping over them and the floor isn't hard to clean. The sight of a few ridges, scratches and whorls doesn't concern me, especially if the poly will fill them in mostly so dirt doesn't collect in them. I just don't want a floor that you have to scrub by hand with a bristle brush because mops won't get in the grooves... been there, done that, never again!
We do have a 3" hand planer, so I could probably run it over all the boards beforehand which might reduce the sanding effort... or maybe not or possibly make things worse adding a groove/hump in the middle of the board. I'd so kill for a bench planer-joiner right about now, so many times during this project have I wished we could use proper shop equipment instead of hand models! At least our chop saw works with our generator, I think I'd want to stab myself in the eye if we had to cut all those boards with the circ saw.
Sounds like 36 grit belts for the first diagonal passes, then 50 grit, then 80 should work... maybe a final with 150 if I'm feeling ambitious or OCD. Good thing the 5 packs of the 3x Norton belts are on sale at Home Depot this week ;) Might need to give the sanding a couple more days in the schedule and find my gel knee pads!
Unfortunately, HD's online catalog doesn't seem to have any orbital discs except 150 and 220, but those at least would be perfect for between poly coats. Maybe they'll have some coarser discs in stock when we actually get there so I can use the orbital for the first passes in the corners and around the edges where the belt sander doesn't reach. I'll have to dig around the shop storage box to see if I have any coarse/med discs in there.
Thanks for reminding me to hook up the shop vac! We have two of them to hook up both sanders while hubby & I can be working at the same time on different parts of the room. We've also got a pretty aggressive cross-draft when the windows are open, so that should help with the dust as well. Let's hope it's not too cold or rainy those days.
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Just
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 18:24
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make sure the flooring is very dry. should bring it in the cabin for a month before if you can , put the floor down and then wait 2 weeks before you sand ,much better if you can do it during the heating season when everything is dry.. this one is 400 sq. ft. white ash , 8's 10's ,and 12's lots of work did it with a random and a hand belt sander,,
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PlicketyCat
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 19:13
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Thanks Just, your floor looks AWESOME! How many coats of poly did you put down and how long did it take to dry? We've budgeted a full overnight between coats and a full week to cure before we walk on it or move in any furniture.
Our boards are dry and under cover (under the house actually), but we'll bring them inside to get totally dry now since we're about two weeks away from installing them. We're already running the woodstove in the cabin at night for the drywall mud and paint since it's been rainy and cool lately. That should help dry the flooring even more.
Hmmm... I was trying to get the walls all done before installing the floor in case I dripped or splashed, but maybe it would be better to get the floors down now to dry all the way while we finish up the walls... I mean we have to sand anyway, right?
A few drop clothes would keep the worst of any spills off the raw wood and I don't have to worry about taping off the junction since we're using routed 2x6's as base molding because we're running the electrics in it since our walls are solid insulation and we don't want to see surface chases. Something like this, except in white/cream:
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Malamute
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 20:59
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Cat, what are you going to use for finish? You mentioned poly. The regular poly I've seen isn't rated or recomended for floors. The marine grade may be. I used Varathane on the last one, it's some TOUGH stuff.
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Just
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 21:38
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one coat of early american stain two coats of oil based poly , sanding after th first coat of poly,,,went back and did a few bad spots the third time 24 hr. between coats and nothing on it for a week,, been down about 15 years , havent done anything to it , still looks new , have a few seems i wish were tighter but we like it very much . it is in our home not the cottage . it get's very little use. never seen a shoe!! it is all drilled and pegged not t&g cut from our own bush ..good luck sounds like u have a handle on it..
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PlicketyCat
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 22:09
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Mal - I have the Parks "budget" super-fast drying, low VOC oil-based Pro-Finish polyurethane for floors. My stupid store doesn't carry the floor Minwax or Varathane (which is just a brand of polyurethane, also made by Parks I believe) in 5 gallons which is what I'd need for 3 coats. They didn't carry satin for floors in those either and I sure didn't want a shiny floor showing every blemish! I also couldn't justify spending 2-3 times as much for the "name brand" for almost exactly the same formulation.
My neighbor used this for the deck boards on his skiff, and they still look great after 5 years. I'm hoping it will hold up as well inside the cabin. Figure with my huge lunker of a dog, the floor finish will take a beating and need periodic maintenance anyway.
I'd love to get the acrylic spar resin like they use on basketball courts... but that is $$$$$$$. We're talking a quart for the price 5 gallons... yikes.
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PlicketyCat
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 22:32
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Quoting: Just one coat of early amarican stain two coats of oil based poly , sanding after th first coat of poly,,,went back and did a few bad spots the third time 24 hr. between coats and nothing on it for a week,, been down about 15 years , havent done anything to it , still looks new , have a few seems i wish were tighter but we like it very much . it is in our home not the cottage . it get's very little use. never seen a shoe!! it is all drilled and pegged not t&g cut from our own bush ..good luck sounds like u have a handel on it..
Good deal. Sounds like I'm doing about the same as you then.
Ours are t&g to minimize gap issues, but we're gluing and face nailing (actually face screwing with square heads) rather than blind nailing. This is all fairly rough, local spruce from the mill in town so it has lots of character and I thought the face nails would compliment it, and the square-head screws were a lot less expensive than square iron nails for a close enough look. Ours will get heavy use, with dog claws, snow boots and firewood, so I think 3 coats will do us... probably a light sand and recoat every 5 years or so.
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Just
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# Posted: 7 Aug 2011 23:07
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that should look nice ' i did one once with horse shoe nails then sanded looked nice looked like the old hand forged nail from long ago..i think they were 25$ for a box of 250 that could run up !!
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PlicketyCat
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# Posted: 8 Aug 2011 06:20
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I would have loved those square nails, but they just weren't in the budget. Still, the dark grey/silver square deck screws we got should go really nicely with the spruce since it has a lot of gray, blue and green tones in it. We aren't going to stain the wood, just leave it nice and blond with the natural coloring (the poly will add just a little gold and depth). We only get about 2 hours of daylight in the winter and our ceilings downstairs are a little low (the bottom of the open joists are at 7') to conserve more heat, so I really didn't want the floors to be dark and heavy.
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