Sanding new oak floor

[Dick Sylvan]

I just put down a new redoak floor over treated pine screeds on a concrete slab. This is in my garage/workshop. The oak was purchased at Lumber Liquidators and seems pretty smooth to me and also seemed to go down fairly evenly, so I don't think I need to do a lot of levelling. I had to put down the floor by moving my tools and workbench to one half of the shop (total size 18' x 16-1/2'), and then when the floor was down in the first half, shift everything , and put down the second half of the floor. Because we have been having mosoon-like weather here, I can't put my tools outside, so I will need to sand and finish the floor in the same way that it was layed down. That is one reason I don't think hiring a pro is practical, so now to my question..... The thought of renting and struggling with a dedicated floor sanding machine sounds gruesome to me. I own a Porter Cable 5" ROS that is built like a grinder, so it is more aggressive that the palm type of ROS. Does anybody have any experience/advice about using this to sand my floor?

[Ron Blaise]

Floor sanders that are much easier to use than you think Dick. I would check out your local Borg to see what's available. I'm sure some of the guys here can help you with a brand to use from their experiance. Are you sure you really need to sand your floor? Based on what you said it sounds like it may already be good enough for a shop floor.

[Bert Johansen]

I agree with Ron. Skip the sanding. You'll never miss it--and it might even be safer, as the floor won't be as slick.

[Christof Grohs]

As a floor person, here is my recommendation for a decent shop floor. You should consider going to local rental yard and renting a 16" dia. orbital buffing machine. Use a white pad under the buffer to drive a piece of 80 grit and then switch to 100 grit, quickly hit the edges with 80 grit on your 5" RO sander, vacuum and seal the floor with Zinser Sealcoat, if you want to take it further, follow with whatever topcoat you fancy...oil modified polyurethane or water-based, either will stick to the Sealcoat just fine. A floor of this size will take about an hour for each grit you use on the buffer. The Sealcoat will be dry in 1/2 hour. No need to rent a drum sander and edger for a oak shop floor. You will probably have under $100 invested including machine rental, 2- 80 grit screens/disks, 2-100 grit screens/disks, 1 gallon seal coat and a mid grade brush.

This process is not going to flatten the floor but the orbital action of the buffer will ease the edges making it much easier to slide things on your floor and it will also remove the "glazed" surface from the factory and aid in the drying/adhesion of your finish coats.

Hope this helps

[Fred Chan]

Go to Home Depot and rent their drum floor sander. Pick up several grits of sandpaper depending on the roughness of your floor, buy extra. Don't start or stop sander while machine isn't in motion. The dust bag actually works not bad and when your done just return all unsed sandpaper for refund. Just go with the grain, it's quite quick and easy. If you don't mind dust a sandpaper disk on a grinder is way faster for edges.

[Carl Crout]

A drum sander is not a good tool to learn how to use on oak. How do I know, I rented one a few years ago and resanded my floors. You had better not start, stop nor even slow down or it will gouge your floor. You have to keep your speed exactly the same.
I will never rent one and try that again.
As far as the floors that I sanded? I ended up tearing the old house down and building a new one a couple of years later.

[Fred Chan]

That sounds like the very first drum sander I ever rented from a tool rental shop. Extra big, extra heavy, extra powerful, able to eat large chunks out of your floor at a single bite! (DAMHIK) Definately not the machine to learn floor refinishing with. Don't know about the the sanders your HD rents but the ones around here are much smaller and easier to use.

[Dick Sylvan]

Thanks for your feedback!

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,
Home Depot rents a floor sander that's essentially 4 ROS "on steroids".
The machine is utterly amazing. It's slower than a drum machine, but much safer in respect to not "overdoing it". It's also quite a bit quicker than the rectangluar pad type.

What's amazing about it is the total lack of dust produced.

I got all geared up with a respirator - opened windows & fan and had at it.
I noticed that there were no dust particles in the air when I looked towrds the window with the sun streaming in.

The bottom of the unit has an enormous suction gizmo and there's a rubber skirt around the base that traps the dust.

It's fairly expensive to operate though. Round sanding disks run about $1.00 ea IIRC. in a 4 pack/ You'll go through 1 36 grit disk per about every 10 to 20 sq feet, depending on how much you need to remove.
I used maybe, 25 on a 25x20 foot living room floor removing the old varnish and smoothing it out.
I used maybe 4 80 grit and 1 120 grit for the final steps.

I finished it off with MinWax water based poly in semi gloss - 4 coats.

It really needs a 5th coat though.

[scott spencer]

Definitely go with a floor sander...preferably a vibrating orbital sander unless you know how to operate the drum sander properly. My only experience actually turned into two experiences...the drum sander was so aggressive that I really botched the job and needed to rent a more user friendly orbital sander to fix it. :o