Maple floors refinishing issues.

[Realtor30]

Hello, I just had my (select) maple floors professionally refinished and many dark lines appeared. Some looks like black sharpie marks. Anyone have any comments what they are or how to get rid of them? Is this natural or am I over reacting? There are over a 120 blemishes in the floors. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[DarisMulkin]

Could be part of the graining but I would have thought the installer would have culled those boards. But I'm not a wood man so who am I to say.

 

[highup]

Looks totally like a natural problem and has nothing to do with the refinishing process. Personally I don't think they're worth dealing with.

 

[Dan]

From the National Hardwood Lumber Association

Mineral Streak: "An olive to greenish-black or brown discoloration of undetermined cause in hardwoods."

The streaks in the pictures are a naturally occurring phenomenon in hardwoods and only occur while the tree is still standing. These rules are for lumber specifically. Of course, you must have lumber before you can create flooring from it.

 

[Realtor30]

Thanks everyone for your responses. They put my mind at ease.

 

[highup]

Think of it as the difference between real wood and laminate flooring with wood look Formica. the reason some of those fake floors don't look good as cuz they're too perfect.

 

[John Ramsay]

I know a lot of hardwood manufacturers of pre-finished floorings use putties to fill small imperfections in the wood. Did you buy this prefinished? If so, there's a chance that could be putty that was used during manufacturing that was stained to match the floor much better in the beginning, but now that you refinished it, the original finish was stripped of the putty and now the new stain has a different effect on it. I could be way off here...hard to tell from the photos. But those were my thoughts. I've got a solid hardwood Easiklip floor installed in my house and since the material was common grade, there are places where putty was used to fill small imperfections.

 

[Dan]

I know a lot of hardwood manufacturers of pre-finished floorings use putties to fill small imperfections in the wood. Did you buy this prefinished? If so, there's a chance that could be putty that was used during manufacturing that was stained to match the floor much better in the beginning, but now that you refinished it, the original finish was stripped of the putty and now the new stain has a different effect on it. I could be way off here...hard to tell from the photos. But those were my thoughts. I've got a solid hardwood Easiklip floor installed in my house and since the material was common grade, there are places where putty was used to fill small imperfections.

John, that part where you said, "I could be way off here" you were correct in this case. Please see definition posted above in post #4.

Now, are manufacturers putting a lot of stuff in factory-finished products they could never sell as unfinished? You bet they are. They are selling what used to be waste at a high profit margin.