[Radek Jablonski]

hi

neighbour has took the carpet away and want to sand the floor and put some stain on it,

would like to give her help, I have a Victor Sprite Standard speed with the plate like on the photo below



the question is what kind of sanding paper I can use with this backing plate that have a hundreds of wires coming out of it, some pads etc?

floor looks like this



and she want to paint it after with some white stain to give old look to it

[Jamie Pearson]

The dust will be horrendous. Don't bother would be my advise.

It will be messy and results will be limited.

[Radek Jablonski]

she has no money to pay to the right person with right equipment
think that rotary will be better then working by hand what she is going to do

so what can I get for it?

[Norbert]

Radek,
Don't try and sand the floor boards with a rotary, you could seriously damage the surface. Especially using a wire bristle type pad on your machine. When sanding any piece of wood you need to sand backwards and forwards in the direction of the wood's gain, like when you rub down a window or door frame for painting. By using a rotary you would risk damaging the floor boards and shredding the wood's surface, as the wire pad spinning round would break-up the wood's fibres. The proper floor sanding machines that you can hire use a course sanding belt, which spins round a cylinder and you push the machine forwards and backwards in the same direction as the wood grain. They also have built in vacuums which help suck up the wood dust and debris. I hope I've made myself clear their?

If your neighbour can't afford to hire this type of machine, I would suggest then trying sanding a small test area with an orbital sander or belt sander like a Black and Decker wood sander, as sold in B&Q, for sanding doors and planks.

Try this link http://www.diy.com/nav/fix/power-tools/sanders to the B&Q website. Here's also a link to the HSS tool hire website http://www.hss.com/cl/9000072/Sanders.html.

Both should be of help. Regards Phil 

[Jamie Pearson]

I can supply you screens that can be used with a standard floor pad on top.

This will however only sand the high spots of the floor if it hasn't been leveled with a belt sander.

[Radek Jablonski]

thanks norbert

so, I will get the small belt sander.

[Roger Oakley]

If you go the belt sander route, best to make sure all the nails/pins are not sticking up proud, as you could rip the belt. You might need to centre punch each one down.

125mm orbital sander would do this also, 60 grit paper, it all I use 9 times out of 10 on the decks we do.

[Terry Guilford]

All good advice so far, just 2 other points, white staining is difficult to do properly even for seasoned professionals you definitely will not be able to do it after using a rotary for sanding, it would look terrible. The other point is white floors are more contemporary looking rather than old unless you use softwood lye followed by white oil and soap... definitely not a budget option.

Terry

[Roger Oakley]

What about Lime waxing it Terry?
We have done this on Teak, not sure how it would look on those boards though, as they are a bit light in colour, They look like a pine based wood.

[Terry Guilford]

With a softwood floor its very hard to avoid scratching across the grain and these look terrible with any form of staining. The other thing is with softwood you need to leave some texture for the lime or whatever you are using to get into but this needs to be with the grain which is impossible with a rotary

[Roger Oakley]

With a softwood floor its very hard to avoid scratching across the grain and these look terrible with any form of staining. The other thing is with softwood you need to leave some texture for the lime or whatever you are using to get into but this needs to be with the grain which is impossible with a rotary

Terry,
You'll have more years of sanding boards then me, but I have to say that with an orbital sander I don't get any scratching across the grain, we only do decking not internal floors, but we do mainly work on Ipe, Cedar, SYP, Iroko Teak etc as well as PT pine so a broad range of hard & soft woods.
Maybe the grit & technique we use helps?

[Terry Guilford]

Roger,

There is a world of difference between decking and internal floors particularly as you are using hardwood. Modern, legal floor finishes require a very high standard of sanding to look good a  rotary alone will not cut it, figuratively and literally.

Terry