logo
logo
Sign in

Floor Sanding And Varnishing - A Quick, Practical Guide

avatar
haseeb

When hiring a company or doing the floor sanding yourself; do keep in mind that you're laying the foundation for a perfectly varnished floor. This is the reward that you will enjoy for a long time to come once the job is finished. Floor sanding is relatively easy as long as you keep a few things in mind. Here are a few helpful hints:

1. Work from coarse grain down to fine. After each pass over the floor switch to a finer grain.

2. When using a machine for floor sanding, make sure you keep it moving because if you let it sit still in one area, you'll create a dent in the wood Floor sanding Daventry.

3. When sanding parts by hand, for example in corners or around heating pipes, only move along with the grain. If you move your sanding paper cross-grain you'll create ugly scratches, which are almost impossible to remove.

4. The final step to floor sanding is what painters call the most important step in painting: removing dust. Make sure the floor is perfectly dust-free. First use a vacuum cleaner, then sweep the entire surface with a static cling cloth.

Now you're ready for varnishing.

In the past, varnishing a floor was quite a chore. Two, three or four layers long, you'd be standing in a room where the entire floor was exhaling solvents at you. Not very pleasant-but not any longer!

Nowadays, the best varnishes are water-based. That means no solvents, no smell lingering for days, and the best? Done in a day.

What You Must Know Before Using Water-Based Varnish

The high-grade water-based varnishes of today dry within hours, literally. Most of the times, a layer will be dry to the touch in 30 minutes and can take light load after four hours. A second layer of varnish can be applied after two hours (Always check the container of your varnish for specific information about drying times!)

That means that you can paint an entire floor three times in one day, and the next day you can live in the room as normal.

It also means that you shouldn't let the edges of a fresh patch of paint dry before extending the patch since you will see the edges of the first patch if it gets a chance to dry up. So don't go around the room painting all the corners and under the radiators and then move on to varnish the large surfaces. Work across the floor in blocks.

collect
0
avatar
haseeb
guide
Zupyak is the world’s largest content marketing community, with over 400 000 members and 3 million articles. Explore and get your content discovered.
Read more