touching up prefinished hardwood floor

[Art Mulder]

I have a hardwood floor in my Family Room - which includes a sliding door and access to the backyard. It was put in by a previous owner. It is a pre-finished hardwood (yes, solid hardwood) so it has those little V-grooves where the boards meet.

Right in front of the sliding door the floor has become a bit damaged from water or sand tracked in by the kids. In just a few small spots it appears worn right through the finish. (it was under a mat, so it snuck up on us :( )

I'd like to refinish that area with a clear coat, and I'm wondering if anyone has done this before who can pass on any advice. Especially I'm wondering what, if anything you need to do to handle those V-grooves between the boards.

[Art Mulder]

Anyone?

Considering how popular prefinished hardwood floor is these days, I would have thought that this was a common thing, but as I google around, I'm finding almost nothing. All the web pages I come across seem to talk about big sanding jobs, and don't say anything about prefinished floors.

[Dan Oliphant]

Art, I have an engineered hardwood floor, and as you say over time sand and such gets tracked over the floor causing damage. I also have a springer that likes to run across the floor.
The top coat is a silica added urethane that is baked on. This top coat is some what thinner (per the manufacture) because they feel the added silica gives them a more scuff resistent surface. Anyway, I took some extra flooring that I had, scratched it up, some deep, some top coat only. I mixed up a bunch of different stains tryng to come as close to the original as possible. I found that Watco stains, various stains/various concentrations all worked very well. After talking with the manufacture again pertaining to top coats I was told that simply doing a cleaning to remove floor cleaner residues, scratch sanding (for bite) at 150/180 grit, recleaning to remove sanding residue followed by a water base urethane (formulated for floors) would be just what the Dr ordered.
I have restained various places that were damaged and will re-topcoat in the spring.