"emv" wrote in message
...
Having found some very useful tips on this group regarding snading
floorboards and preparing them for use, I thought I would share my
experiences in case anyone is planning on doing this again.

I'll second that 'well done'! When I posted my experiences of trying to
expose
the floorboards in my dining room ( , two days removing carpet, underlay,
grips, staples, making safe nails, relaying badly aligned boards, then a day
laying rockwool insulation under the floor, then three days applying and
waiting for
woodworm treatment to dry, a weekend with a belt and a disc sander, then
several days cleaning up, varnishing with three coats, and caulking and
sealing the floorboard gaps, etc etc ), I had someone reply that he'd done
his floorboards in one day and they looked fine! I'm glad to see someone
else has gone about it the dedicated way and triumphed in the end!

cheers,

Andy.

Having found some very useful tips on this group regarding snading
floorboards and preparing them for use, I thought I would share my
experiences in case anyone is planning on doing this again.

The room I was doing was only 10m2 and in a relatively new house. The
floorboards were typical 1970's which would split when you tried to get
under the boards to access any electrics or plumbing. Therefore I decided I
wanted straight edged boards, screwed down in such a way that I could get
underneath again with relatively little fuss if I needed to.

After getting some boards from B&Q and watching them warp out of all
recognition after a few days out the packet, I decided I needed something
which had been around a bit longer. Though not cheap I got some antique pine
boards from a local supplier on the assumption that these would not shrink
or warp as much.

Fortunately that turned out to be the case but they were not dead straight
edged. It required quite a bit of planing to get the sides straight enough
so the boards pushed together and there was no gap.

Having read books by Jeff Howell, I thought I should try and use floor brads
to fix the boards, as much to keep the traditional look as anything else.
However after 3 boards I found that I had to give up on the brads for
several reasons. One, the boards were splitting at the end s despite
sizeable pilot holes. Second, I was knocking the stuffing out of the ceiling
below as I tried to get the brads in. And finally it was a pretty
irreversible process and the boards just wouldn't be lifted without damage.
I therefore decided to use recessed screws - especially as I had a automatic
screw gun which could make the whole job easier.

A friend had recommended to drill down, scre in and then cut a lug to
adhesive into the hole. However this would mean I could not easily remove
the board if I needed. In the end I just used the screw gun and the screws
were recessed slightly. However there the holes didn't look that neat after
the screws were removed and replaced later. With hindsight I would have
predrilled the holes 50% of the way through the board using a diameter
slightly larger than the screw and then screwed down. I had to do this later
anyway when it came to sanding but the job would have looked neater if I'd
done it initially. Incidently I found using a small cheap drill stop from
B&Q was the trick to ensuring I didn't drill down too far.

I should mention that the planing of the boards to fit together took me
about 3 weekends. Maybe it would have been quicker had I been a more
experienced woodworker or if I had a thicknesser. Without either of these
the job seemed to take forever - satisfying at the end though.

Another thing to be aware of is pipes runs cut into the top of the joists.
In my case I needed one board to span the cutting. All the other boards
needed to be placed to work around this. With hindsight I would have fitted
this first, rather than starting at one side of the room. It would have
saved a lot of painstaking planeing later on.

Unfortunately I had assumed the boards that were supplied were all excatly
the same depth - this is what I had asked for. When I came to fit them I
found that they were quite different and I needed to fit about 10 shims to
raise the some of the boards so that they were within a few mm of each
other. With hindsight I may have taken some of these back to the supplier
but it was a bit late by the time I found out. Even after the shims there
were still some 5mm ridges between the boards.

When it came to sanding I had read here that ridges tended to rip off the
sanding sheets from the floor sanders. I too found this to be the case.
Fortunately however another poster to this group had recommended getting a
anding attachment to a angle grinder to do the edges (rather than a hired
floor edger). This was an inspired tip. However I decided to go one step
further and use the same tool to get rid of the ridges by sanding them out.
This worked a treat and I has managed to smooth out the whole floor within
30 minutes and without ruining any more of those expensive 24 grit sanding
sheets. In the end I only had to use 1 of each sanding sheet (plus one extra
shredded 24 grit due before I used the angle grinder) and the sheets hardly
looked used afterwards.

Once the ridges were gone I was able to use the 24 grit across the boards
using the floor sander and gradually get the boards flatter. In the end I
got a 80 grit finish and while the boards were not dead flat - they had
slight rises in the middle of some boards - they did look very good.

Finally I sanded the edges using the angle grinder. I had originally used it
flat but found that it was quite easy to end up digging the near side of the
disc into the board as you tried to sand down the far side. The best
technique I found was to angle the disc back slightly with a little pressure
on the back of the disc - then to make circle motions aroud the area that
needed sanding. I finished with a cheap hand held delta sander and a lot of
pressure. The delta sander got the corners done too.

Incidently when I did find that the angle grinder had cut too far I
rectified the situation by a circular motion so that a got rid of the ridge
and ended up with a slight depression. Not perfect but you dont notice it
unless you look closely. I convinced myself it added to the character of the
floor!

I have read that using a damp cloth to get up the dust can raise the grain
again so I followed advice from here about just using a hoover. Fortunately
I have a powerful Dyson which did the trick nicely (clean the filter
regularly though as sawdust clogs it up).

Finally I decided to use Danish Oil to finish as suggested on this forum.
Again this was inspired as the character of the boards really came through
and they have a lovely warm glow now. I've put 4 coats on - the last one
applied using a Scotch scourer pad. One thing I noticed is that the Danish
Oil takes quite a lot longer to dry after the first cost. It was still a bit
tacky after a night of drying. I found that one had to be careful when it
was a liitle tacky (even after the 8 hour drying time recommended) as a
careless step onto the boards left a dark shadow of a footprint. It came out
easily after another application though.

I had been worried that the screw holes would ruin the naturel effect. In
fact the fact that the scres are recessed means that they are not visible. I
used black screws too, which means that the holes just look like features -
albeit regular features - in the wood. Some of the screw holes could look
neater, the wood having splintered a bit when recessed screws had been
removed, but this would have been rectified by predrilling the recess holes.

Finally I was careful not to allow Danish Oil to fill up in the recess holes
as I wanted to be able to get to the scres if required. One of the nice
features of the Danish Oil is that it is aqueous enough to be easily removed
from the holes using an absobent cloth - thats if it does get absorbed into
the wood anyway.

Anyway I hope this is of some help to people planing on putting down or
restoring traditional floorboards. Hopefully it adds to some of the
excellent tips I found on the group.

Cheers

Elliot

"emv" wrote in message
...
Having found some very useful tips on this group regarding snading
floorboards and preparing them for use, I thought I would share my
experiences in case anyone is planning on doing this again.

snip long but inspiring story

Anyway I hope this is of some help to people planing on putting down or
restoring traditional floorboards. Hopefully it adds to some of the
excellent tips I found on the group.

Well done!

Mary

Cheers

Elliot

"andrewpreece" wrote in message
...

"emv" wrote in message
...
Having found some very useful tips on this group regarding snading
floorboards and preparing them for use, I thought I would share my
experiences in case anyone is planning on doing this again.

I'll second that 'well done'! When I posted my experiences of trying to
expose
the floorboards in my dining room ( , two days removing carpet, underlay,
grips, staples, making safe nails, relaying badly aligned boards, then a
day
laying rockwool insulation under the floor, then three days applying and
waiting for
woodworm treatment to dry, a weekend with a belt and a disc sander, then
several days cleaning up, varnishing with three coats, and caulking and
sealing the floorboard gaps, etc etc ), I had someone reply that he'd done
his floorboards in one day and they looked fine! I'm glad to see someone
else has gone about it the dedicated way and triumphed in the end!

cheers,

Andy.
The last room I did took a day from start to finish, I did not fill gaps
between the boards, the finish is excellent.
Much as though I'd have loved to take longer to do it we needed to sleep in
the room that night!

I have to do our sitting room at some point this year, it is huge and once
again I need to do it in a day. Not looking forward to it

D

"andrewpreece" wrote in message
...

"emv" wrote in message
...
Having found some very useful tips on this group regarding snading
floorboards and preparing them for use, I thought I would share my
experiences in case anyone is planning on doing this again.

I'll second that 'well done'! When I posted my experiences of trying to
expose
the floorboards in my dining room ( , two days removing carpet, underlay,
grips, staples, making safe nails, relaying badly aligned boards, then a
day
laying rockwool insulation under the floor, then three days applying and
waiting for
woodworm treatment to dry, a weekend with a belt and a disc sander, then
several days cleaning up, varnishing with three coats, and caulking and
sealing the floorboard gaps, etc etc ), I had someone reply that he'd done
his floorboards in one day and they looked fine!

There's always one - but I doubt that they go to such lengths as you and the
OP have done. Or wht we've done. Why, it took days just to get the
poylurethane finish we wanted on our boards to say nothing of all the other
processes which went before.

I'm glad to see someone
else has gone about it the dedicated way and triumphed in the end!

So am I. And that he kept such a good record and. It will be a far more
realistic example to others than instant makeovers are.

Mary

cheers,

Andy.

I prefer a 4" disc sander to an angle grinder. It has no guard to get in the
way and the flexible backing disc reduces gouges. Packs of paper discs are
very cheap and, although not designed to run at that speed, lasted long
enough to make them economical.

Thanks for the positive feedback. I'm glad it was worth reading.

Thanks to Stuart too for the tip about the disc sander. I'll look into
getting one of those.

Elliot