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Hughes Floors and Hardwood Floors is owned and operated by Art and Chuck Hughes. When it comes to hardwood floor installation, refinishing, floor sanding and hardwood floor refinishing you can't beat Hughes Floors. Our Floor installers are simply the best at floor installations of all types. No floor job is too big or to small for Hughes Floor installers. We are the Hardwood Floor installation and refinishing experts Sanding a Timber Floor. Using a floor sander. Sanding parquet and woodblock floors. Back to full list of projects SANDING A TIMBER FLOOR One of the jobs Hughes Floors does best in the home is sanding an old floor and transforming it into a lovely new surface. This application is generally not suitable for parquet floors which are best done using a sander called a trio sander. More information on this particular floor sanding can be obtained from Chuck@HughesFloors.com. Chuck Hughes is an expert Floor Sander who uses the ultimate floor finishing sander, ideal for veneered floors, parquet and all hardwood strip floors. He finds real pleasure in sanding floors. Chuck and Art Hughes leave floors absolutely perfect. We first use a nail punch and punch down all the nail heads to about 1 eighth of an inch below the surface. If you do not do this the nails will rip your sandpaper to pieces. Then we use two sanders. Hughes Hardwood floors uses top of the range belt sanders. These sanders are virtually dust free because of a huge dust bag, or collection unit, incorporated into the design. We also use a drum/roller sander which has the sandpaper attached to a big roller. To apply the roller sander to the floor its necessary to tilt the sander up and down to make contact. This can, in inexperienced hands, lead very easily, to huge gouges in the floor. The belt type sanders from Hughes Floors use sandpaper on a belt which is operated so simply by a clutch type lever, making starting and stopping a much safer affair. Pluses from Hughes Floors: New belt sanders, Old drum type sander and Edge sanders We like to use a large sander for the main area, and one for the edges. For stairs we use the edge sander. Usually Art and Chuck Hughes start with 40 grit, which is a very coarse paper, then 80 grit, a medium paper and finally 120 grit, which is fine. The grit element refers to the actual pieces of grit in a given area. Hughes Floors sanding machines are very powerful. We're careful never to leave them in one place for one second too long, they will eat the floor. We Keep them moving for a nice, even finish on your hardwood floor. When sanding and refinishing wood floors we keep at it until you have the main area sanded down to the new wood, there will probably be a few undulations in the boards, which will prevent us getting the big sander into some of the marks, but we get them with the edge sander later. Now we use the edge sander to get close to the skirting boards and any marks mentioned above. After this rough sand Art and Chuck Hughes change the paper to 80 grit and repeat the process and finally with the 120 grit. These final passes are really to erase the scratch marks made by the first pass with the 40-grit paper. When we are happy that the floor is as smooth as we can get it, we are ready to apply the finish coat. We vacuum the floor completely, then leave for a couple of hours and repeat. For those of you who are in any doubt about how dusty this job can be if you do not use the modern up to date sanders the dust can get into every room in the house and take weeks to get clean. When Art and Chuck are sure the place is dust free, they give the floor a wipe over with a rag soaked in white spirit. If you do not fancy this job your self, why not get the pros in. Your floor ( can be sanded professionally by www.hughesfloors.com. Please click through our website for images of professionally finished floors. Welcome to Hughes Floors a professional Floor Sanders Web Site. Our company specializes in hardwood floor installation, refinishing and repair, serving the Metro-West area of Massachusetts. Old House, New Floor: Sanding A New Hardwood Floor With A Rental Drum Sander is a great way to start. When using a drum sander we run it over the floor in a careful pattern to even out the imperfections in the oak flooring. Hughes floors is the best at Installing Hardwood Flooring as well as Finishing A Hardwood Floor With Urethane Of all the steps in hardwood floor installation, sanding is by far the least favorite, and not because it's boring. If you're thinking of Do it yourself then note that the rental floor sanders are very noisy and hearing protection should be worn, as well as dust masks. Be prepared for a sanding ordeal, I mean... project. As with any sanding task, the first sanding is done with the coarsest sandpaper, sometimes even 20 grit. The initial step in sanding a new floor with uneven board heights is to sand at a 45 degree angle to the grain. It can take quite a few passes of the sander to remove these small peaks. The diagonal sanding was by far the longest procedure. The precision of the tongue-and-groove milling will determine how much of this sanding is required. There is a pattern that must be followed with drum sanders: successive passes working from right to left. The sanding drum is tapered slightly, and it cuts deeper on the left (where the diameter is larger) and the right side feathers out the deeper scratches. For this reason the right-to-left pattern must be followed. The commonly recommended method is to advance 2 to 4 inches each pass. If you think about it, 2 inches of advancing each pass isn't very much. The work progresses very slowly. Sometimes the only way to make serious progress is to lift up on the handle as the sander was pulled backwards. This takes weight off the back rollers and puts more weight on the drum . Some people recommend pushing and pulling the sander. We let the sander pull itself forward, until it bumps the wall, and then pull it back. On the forward stroke the machine was barely pressing down, but on the back stroke we lift up to apply pressure. After the diagonal sanding has removed all the height differences between the boards, we sand the floor again using coarse sandpaper, 20-40 grit. We continue sanding until no more diagonal scratches are visible. As the sander is dragged backwards, the operator eventually hits the wall with several feet of floor remaining. The approach is to work right-to-left across the room, then turn around and sand the missed section, from right to left, back to the starting point. These are not the ordinary 9" x 11" sandpaper sheets that you buy at your local hardware store. They are specifically made for floor sanders, and all rental shops should have a supply of sheets that they will sell you. Our shop sent us home with a couple of each grit, and they gave us a refund for the sheets we didn't use. After sanding with two grades of sandpaper, it was quite evident where the drum sander's work ended... a very distinct line about 4 inches from the wall. The power edge sander is necessary to sand down this edge strip. This tool is basically a very beefy 7 inch disc sander, and the same grits as the drum sander are used. We find that a circular looping motion works best. We develop a routine, one of us running the drum sander, and the other going around the room with the edge sander. It seems extraordinary: Humans Voluntarily Sanding Floors The 5 inch random orbit sander sometimes solves problems. For the wave zone, we sand in large blocks, about 2 feet square. We run the sander over and over, side-to-side and up-and-down, randomly and in uniform patterns. Since the small sander can be run with one hand, We feel the floor with our other hand. Along the edges we run the orbital sander in loops and circles. While sanding the edges we spend get into each corner. Since the random orbit sander is round, it too cannot get all the way into the corner. The remaining high spots in the corners are scraped out with a chisel or paint scraper, and hand-sanded smooth. We then go over the entire floor with 100 grit sandpaper. Sometimes we do a pass with 150 grit In the past two years I have installed three rooms of pre-finished flooring, some normal 3/4" thick, some thin 3/8" thick. This material is just like installing normal flooring, but when the boards are installed the floor is done. It really hastens the pace of a project. Finishing A Hardwood Floor With Urethane Additional Reading: Floor Sanding, by Don Bollinger, Fine Homebuilding's Builder's Library series, Taunton Press. Originally published in Fine Homebuilding magazine, April 1983 Tools Used: Floor Sander (Drum Type), Rented Edge Sander, Rented 5" Hook-and-Loop Random Orbital Sander Materials Used: Sandpaper For Drum Sander Sandpaper For Edge Sander Sandpaper For Orbital Sander Hard Flooring Soft Floor Wood Floor Sanding Floor sanding can be done by hand, but electrically driven sanding machines are used almost exclusively today. Sanding Machines Sanding machines may be either the drum type or disk type (floor polisher). In drum sanders the sandpaper is mounted on a cylindrical drum that rotates on an axis parallel to the plane of the floor. Thus the sandpaper makes its scratches in straight lines in the direction of movement of the machine. In disk sanders the sandpaper is mounted on a disk that rotates in a circle in the plane of the floor. As a disk sander is moved over the floor, the grits make spiral scratches that necessarily cross the grain of the wood. A drum sander, however, can not reach the last few inches of floor nearest the baseboard. Electric edgers, which are small disk sanders, are available for sanding these edges of the floor or they may be done by hand. Sandpaper Sandpaper acts by gouging fine slivers from the wood surface. Scratches must be especially fine to escape detection on a wood with close texture, such as maple, and must be still finer to remain unnoticed if they cross the grain of the wood. In sanding a floor, time is saved by starting with coarse sandpaper to remove the grosser roughness and imperfections and to make the floor level as quickly as possible. The scratches left by the coarse grits are then removed by successive sanding with a finer sandpaper. Sanding Procedures Before beginning the sanding procedure we carefully sweep all dirt, dust and other debris from the floor. We "Set" all nails that may be protruding either in the floor or baseboard so that the sanding machine will not be damaged. Sometimes, only two sanding cuts are needed on a new hardwood floor, but if a particularly smooth finish is desired, three cuts will be necessary. The first cuts should be done with a coarse or medium abrasive, always ending with a fine abrasive. A smoother finish will result if the final sanding is done with the floor polisher or disk sander. Of course, more passes with finer paper will result in a smoother finish. If an old finish cannot be satisfactorily repaired, a complete sanding of the surface and then application of a new finish may be necessary. Most flooring is 3/4-inch thick so they can withstand sanding. In these cases, we make certain that all nails are countersunk and that the floor is as clean as possible before sanding. We Use an "open face" paper to remove the old finish. The heat and abrasion of the sanding operation may make the old finish gummy and will quickly clog normal sandpaper. Once new wood appears, regular sandpaper may be used. The number of cuts required to restore an old floor is largely determined by the condition of the floor and the thickness of the finish being removed. If the floor is badly scarred or warped, we use as many cuts as necessary to get a smooth, unblemished surface. Make the first one or two cuts at a 45 degree angle with medium grit paper, and then follow the instructions given for sanding a new floor. If the surface is in good shape and has no thick build-up of old finish and wax, one pass with the disk sander and extra-fine paper may be sufficient. We are always sure that we've removed all the old finish. Also See Wood Floor Finishing Wood Floors, Laminate, Subflooring Flooring Refinishing Hardwood Floors Whether you've had wood floors for a long time or just discovered them under old carpeting, you've probably considered refinishing them. Waxing and/or buffing often provide a good shine, but refinishing the floor is usually the only way to regain the original richness and beauty of the wood. Refinishing is hard work and people really should opt to hire our professionals. Is Your Floor A Good Candidate? Filling Gaps & Cracks Equipment For Refinishing Sanding Hardwood Floors Finish Sanding & Buffing Choosing & Applying Stain Selecting A Finish Applying Finish Wood Floor Care Refinishing a wood floor is a great way to increase the value of your living space. Sometimes, a floor with shallow scratches or a dull surface only needs a top coat of finish. Other times, refinishing isn't enough and whole boards need to be replaced. If the floor feels spongy, sags, or if floor boards are buckled/warped, then consider replacing them. If scratches or dings are in the wood, refinishing is the next step. However, a wood floor can only be refinished so many times because each sanding takes off more wood. Hughes Floors checks at floor edges or around a heat register to see how much wood remains. Equipment For Refinishing Refinishing a hardwood floor requires some specific items. drum sander floor edger buffer orbital/ palm sander putty knife and scraper shop vacuum ear protection, dust masks, safety goggles lamb's wool and natural bristle brush, or foam applicators, tack cloths We remove everything that isn't nailed down and sweep the floor thoroughly. Use diagonal pliers to pull out any left over carpet staples and use a hammer & nailset to sink any exposed nails that may damage the abrasives or sanding machines. Art and Chuck leave the baseboards unless you plan to replace them. If so, we use a shim behind the pry bar to avoid damaging the walls. To avoid spreading dust throughout the house we hang plastic over the room's doorways and put rags or towels under doors and over vents. Lastly, Chuck and Art walk over the whole floor and seek out any squeaks, cracks, or other repairs that should be done before sanding. Finish Sanding & Buffing After the rough sanding, change to a medium (50-60) grit. Go over the entire floor the same way. After this pass check again for cracks/holes using matching wood putty to fill them in. Also look for nailheads. Countersink these "shiners" and fill them in. For the final sanding, use a fine (80-100 grit) abrasive and finish with a palm sander around the perimeter to feather sanding areas. We buff the floor (going with the grain) using a fine abrasive screen (100-120 grit) to help tighten the wood grain before staining. Choosing & Applying Stain Staining and finishing are the culminating steps that begin to show all the wood's character. Oil-based stains are popular because they are easy to use and look nice. Oil-based stains are reliable, available in a variety of colors, and are -- at least for the time being -- the better choice for stains. Water-based stains are still in their beginning stages of development and some people have had unsatisfying results. But lately, water-based stains have been improving and gaining in popularity. Whichever type of stain chosen, we always note the drying times and test the stain on a hidden area or scrap piece before applying to the whole floor. Staining an entire floor goes fast with two people. One applying stain, the other wiping away the excess. Using a rag, we apply the stain cutting in from the corners and working with the wood grain. We wipe off any excess and change rags often. Excess moisture can raise the grain of the wood and cause footmarks to show through the finish. We let the stain dry out overnight and avoid walking on the floor. Selecting Finish There are two basic types of finishes: surface and penetrating/wax. Penetrating finishes were popular, but now surface finishes are sometimes good choices. They're water resistant, provide a durable top coating, and are easy to maintain. Generally, surface finishes are either oil-modified urethane (often referred as polyurethane) or water-based urethane. Water-based finishes have rapidly improved in quality. They're less toxic, dry faster (2 to 3 coats can be applied in one day), are clearer, more durable, an environmentally-friendly choice, and clean-up with soap and water. Oil-modified urethane is commonly used but cures out slowly. However, oil-modified urethane is thicker and usually takes 2-3 coats for a good finish. Water based urethane is thinner and takes 3+ coats. CAUTION: Do not try to renew a urethane finish by applying wax. This makes it impossible to renew the floor except by sanding. Remember, wax and urethane don't mix. Applying Finish We use a high quality natural bristle brush or foam applicator to cut in along the edges and corners. Avoid drips and thick overlaps of finish. We start at the farthest point from the doorway and apply an even coat. While the finish is still wet, Chuck blends in any brush marks with a lamb's wool or foam applicator. Hughes Floors works with the wood grain in 5' wide sections down the width of the room. We let the finish dry for 24 hours unless using the quicker drying water-based urethane. Installation Restoring Hardwood Floors With No Dust To refinish wood floors, you don't always have to sand them. As professionals we use screening, or a buffing machine, to scuff away the scratch. Then we reapply the clear urethane coat. You can walk on your refinished hardwood floors in just a day. If you have a significant amount of gorgeous hardwood flooring in a home you just purchased. Some of it is in perfect condition and other places that receive heavy foot traffic have some minor scratches and the finish is dull. Hughes Floors can I make the floors look like new. Do they have to be sanded and refinished? Is there an easier way? Yes you can hire the pros at Hughes Floors. We absolutely understand why you want to restore the hardwood flooring. Wood flooring is one of our personal favorites. It is warm, durable, appealing to the eye and it adds value to your home. What's more, it is a very environmentally friendly building material. The hardwood tree forests are abundant and growing and we actually have more trees today in North America than we did just 25 years ago! Some simple liquids can extend the useful life of the wood floor. When a hardwood floor is sanded and coated with layers of protective urethane or varnish, it can withstand a considerable amount of abuse. You actually walk on the clear finish, not the wood. Dust and small dirt and grit particles are a floor finishes' worst enemy. As you walk across a hardwood floor that is slightly dirty your feet act as sanding pads. If the grit particles are large enough, you will actually scratch the finish. Over time normal foot traffic can and will erode the layers of clear finish exposing bare wood. This is to be avoided at all costs if possible. Once the floor is scuffed, the small amount of dust is vacuumed and any remaining dust is removed with a rag soaked in mineral spirits. The professional then applies a new coat of urethane with a lamb's wool pad or squeegee and you can walk on the floor the next day. After three to seven days the new finish will have cured so that it can accept heavy traffic. The floor restoration industry has introduced some wonderful new products that allow a professionals like Art and Chuck to renew a hardwood floor finish without creating any dust. A three part system allows you to use a liquid to chemically sand the existing finish, then apply a bonding formulation followed by an environmentally friendly waterbased clear coat that can be walked on in just eight hours. An average size room that contains a little over 200 square feet of floor area can be completely restored using this dust free method in less than 3 hours. Restoration too tough? Install a new hardwood floor using Hughes Hardwood Flooring Installation / Refinishing and avoid costly mistakes. If you want to change the color tone of your floors it is sometimes possible without refinishing the floor. A light floor can be made slightly darker by adding color pigments to the clear urethane. Oil based urethane accepts nearly all pigments. If you use water based urethane, be sure that the pigments are compatible. If you decide to colorize the urethane keep in mind that a second coat with no pigment needs to be applied over the color coat. This extra step gives added protection to the wood and it is well worth it if you want to change the look of your gorgeous wood floors. How to refinish hardwood floors Around two-fifths of all carpet, floor, and tile installers and finishers are self-employed. Most workers learn on the job. Tile installers and setters will see the fastest growth; carpet installers will have the most job openings. Employment of carpet, floor, and tile installers and finishers is less sensitive to fluctuations in construction activity than that of other construction trades workers. Nature of the Work [About this section] Back to Top Carpet, tile, and other types of floor coverings not only serve an important basic function in buildings, but their decorative qualities also contribute to the appeal of the buildings. Carpet, floor, and tile installers and finishers lay these floor coverings in homes, offices, hospitals, stores, restaurants, and many other types of buildings. Tile also may be installed on walls and ceilings. Floor installers and floor layers lay floor coverings such as laminate, linoleum, vinyl, cork, and rubber for decorative purposes, or to deaden sounds, absorb shocks, or create air-tight environments. Before installing the floor, floor layers inspect the surface to be covered and, if necessary, correct any imperfections in order to start with a smooth, clean foundation. They measure and cut floor covering materials according to plans or blueprints. Next, they may nail or staple a wood underlayment to the surface or may use an adhesive to cement the foundation material to the floor; the foundation helps to deaden sound and prevents the top floor covering from wearing at board joints. Finally, floor layers install the floor covering to form a tight fit. After a carpenter installs a new hardwood floor or when a customer wants to refinish an old wood floor, floor sanders and finishers are called in to smooth any imperfections in the wood and apply finish coats of varnish or polyurethane. To remove imperfections and smooth the surface, they will scrape and sand wooden floors using floor-sanding machines. They then inspect the floor and remove excess glue from joints using a knife or wood chisel and may further sand the wood surfaces by hand, using sandpaper. Finally, they apply coats of finish. Carpet, floor, and tile installers and finishers held about 184,000 jobs in 2004. About 42 percent of all carpet, floor, and tile installers and finishers were self-employed, compared with 19 percent of all construction trades workers. The following tabulation shows 2004 wage and salary employment by specialty: Tile and marble setters 44,000 Carpet installers 41,000 Floor layers, except carpet, wood, and hard tiles 16,000 Floor sanders and finishers 7,000