Refinishing cork flooring?

[Chris Yarish]

NOt sure where else on the web to ask this question, but I am looking ot refinish my cork flooring.
I had heard that it can be sanded down and that a new coat of poly can be applied.
Question:
1. Is this possible?
2. Can I restain/recolor the cork before the poly is added
3. What kind of staing would be best?

[Jim Dailey]

Hi Chris,
I am planning on refinishing a cork floor also but probably not until winter... I had understood you could re-coat using a poly also. I emailed a dealer of cork flooring in England. They where kind enough to respond back confirming the re-coating with poly however they provided no additional detail. My flooring has vinyl covering of something like 6mm that follows the texture or imperfections of the natural cork. Since the surface is not truely flat, sanding will only hit the high spots... Thus if in my case, if I aggressively sanded the surface I would sand thru the vinyl on the high spots causing a very uneven tone due to differing thickness of the vinyl. It seems in my case I would be better off 1st striping any wax off the surface, than using a chemical "no sand" treatment to etch the surface. Then apply the poly. I do not plan on using any stain to change the color or tone of the floor, but unless you sanded all the previous surface off it would seem you would only be applying a color layer within the new surface.

I am pleased you posted this, hopefully someone can shed some additional
light on this subject for the two of us....

jim

[Chris Yarish]

Yeah, well thanks for your input. I had completely overlooked the notion that sanding would only hit the high spots. Given that we want to change the color, hitting the highs and lows will be imperative.
I have yet to determine if the flooring is covered in a wax, a poly, or as you have mentioned, vinyl.

Currently, the color is reddish, and we hope to change it to something darker.

The problem that I see with refinishing is that the workable depth of the cork is, at most 3/8".