The Art of Floor Sanding (part 7)

Welcome, welcome back, Floor Bore here.

Before we go any further i'd like to go over a few points..
Remember always to be in control of the sanding process
Do not guess and haphazardly estimate that the floor is now smooth
 

This is why for example we always sand at an angle to the grain with our belt machine.
It's much easier to see diagonal scratch marks  and remove them compared to sanding along the grain where scratches are easily hidden.

Our system means that we usually flatten the floor with a 40/36 grit abrasive moving our belt machine at a slight diagonal to the grain.
The angle of the diagonal depends on how easy the floor is to flatten, how tough the finish we are removing , and the type of wood, so one needs to be able to adapt accordingly.
If your belt machine has heavy/medium and light weight settings, one can use these to go over the floors in the same direction as the initial diagonal cut reducing the depth of the scratches and making it easier for our rotary machine to sand
off the diagonal marks.
Remember to use the light if you really want to know what is happening!
One can also use the light with our rotary machine initially to check that the previous scratch marks are being removed.
Then decide how many passes this needs and put the light aside.
I have deliberately not talked about the different sanding machines and abrasive manufacturers .
There are many differences between machine and abarsives from different manufacturers so one needs to experiment and find the papers that work the best.
In the same way all makes of sanding machines have different weight,power capabilities so you need
to adjust your schedule accordingly.
Bye for now
Back soon !