Hand Scraped Floor Question

[gonediesel]

Hello, I recently bought a home with ash flooring. I am currently hand scraping it. We have a professional hardwood flooring company that will seal it. I would like to know what is the method of sanding or buffing out some of the rough spots, splinters, etc after the scraping. He said he would use his buffer to smooth it out. I would like to know if the buffer is used what grit or toughness should he use so that it won't remove all the character I just added.

Here is a little info about the project, Ash hardwood flooring. It has been sanded down and buffed. It was nice and smooth. I am scraping it down and distressing it. We will stain it with Bona jacobean and then wipe it off. Then it will be buffed down to remove the stain on the surface. Hopefulling leaving the stain in the distressed marks and the grain. The floor will then be sealed. My wife and I came up with this after about two weeks for playing around.

Here is what we are going for but in a hand scraped texture:

Thanks for any comments and suggestions. GD

 

[Ken]

Let the pro do his job. Thats why he is the pro and you are the customer. Dont worry about what grit hes using. Dont be THAT customer. I completely understand that you want to be involved with whats going on but if you hired a real progessional then leave your faith in him. I cant stand when customers try and tell me how to do my job and I imagine Im not the only one on this particular forum that feels that way. You took the time to find a dependable contractor so let him work his magic and leave him alone. Good Luck!

 

[gonediesel]

Sorry Ken, I have been around long enough to know there are plenty of people who think and advertise they are pros but they are far from it. So I will come to places like this forum and try to get some helpful info so that I can decide if the "pro" really is a pro. Regarding the question, I guess I didn't make it clear in the original post, this is a project that I am doing with the pro. He is sanding and sealing and I have scraped and stained. Unfortunately I live in a part of the country that people don't do anything creative with their floors. All of the flooring specialist we had in the house had never done hand scraped or distressed floors. I was told a couple of times, "people don't do that stuff up here" Finally I had someone come out from the cities that said he had experience but ultimately he only has installed pre-distressed manufactured flooring and his quote was 2x over the next highest bid. The company I settled on has done plenty of floors and seemed to be the one of the most honest guys of the bunch. He was straight forward and said he would love to do it but it would be completely experimental. I have researched everything as far as staining and scraping but would like to understand the buffing process a bit more. I started to read up on the pads and was completely overwhelmed with all the different pads. So I am still wondering if buffing to remove the dark stain will still leave the scraped texture. I just spent two days on my knees scraping and want to be certain that buffing the floor will not completely remove all the scrape texture. Thanks for any helpful info, GD

 

[FloorMaven]

I would like to know if the buffer is used what grit or toughness should he use so that it won't remove all the character I just added.

He'll use a conditioning pad which is slightly abrasive at the same time being thick and soft to conform to the contours of the floor.

 

[gonediesel]

FM, thanks for the reply. I found a good site that explained the differences between pads. I believe the floor guy said he was using a maroon pad. I tried to look that up and what i found was a pad that i didn't think was all that thick (<0.5"). But I guess there is enough give to conform a bit to the floor with about a half inch. I wish I had been at the house to see him do the buffing pre scrape and stain. That would have solved my curiosity and concerns.

 

[MHollandAK]

Places like HSS hire shops have the said pads usually in stock, from experience these pads are usually used to clean hard floors (quarry tile, polished concrete, resin etc) but I imagine they can be used to buff a hand scraped no problem. Machine will most likely be a Wolff/Numatic or similar 15" spinner with the buffing pad put on top of a Velcro pad. These are quite tricky to use so be warned if you decide to have a go yourself. Good luck, sounds like a lot of hard work you're putting in there.