After hardwood floor installation, the new surface needs for a special refinishing. But not everyone knows how to refinish hardwood floors by yourself correctly.
After hardwood floor installation, the new surface needs for a special refinishing. But not everyone knows how to refinish hardwood floors by yourself correctly.
Why do you need to have a floor refinishing?
To give a magnificent appearance to a floor. Natural beauty and pronounced texture of a tree will be visible only after.- To protect a wooden floor from moisture, mechanical damages, to make it wear-resistant.
Refinishing of hardwood flooring is an obligatory component of a high quality of floor covering. But, if the process of working couldn’t be strictly followed a special technology step-by-step, then it is possible to spoil even the best flooring laid in a tasteful manner. Therefore, it is important to think about all the details of flooring refinishing.
The scraping
It allows removing surface irregularities, for example, differences between separate levels. Depending on availability of professional tools, work is carried out:
Manually. It is rather a labor-intensive process, absolutely unjustified on big squares. The hand scraper (steel) is used there. A small section of flooring is wiped with a damp rag, after which the cycle is pressed by both hands to the floor. Further, a thin shaving is removed with a movement on itself (not sharp). It is recommended to carry out a scraping along fibers.- By the mechanized method. The special electrical machines are used for such work. Moving the device on a floor, all irregularities are eliminated. The only inconvenience is handling of adjunctions, corners, sites under systems of heating, etc.
It is important! If the fixing of the boards was performed by nails, before scratching it is necessary to check that on a surface there were no protruding hats.
When scraping is complete, all the hardwood floor is carefully swept out, and for high-quality removal of small garbage is vacuumed in addition.
The grinding
After a scraping, there are a lot of damages, such as waves and others and the grinding will help to eliminate them. Usually, special machines of tape type are used for this purpose. At this stage, the emery tape with P60 abrasive is applied.
If works are carried out in the manual mode, then the emery paper is attached to the holder, but the efficiency of such grinding is much lower. You won’t be able to do this work efficiently without sanding
After you sand a wooden surface of a floor, it is possible to start the following stage – the putty.
The putty
To eliminate cracks between boards of a hardwood floor, the putty is carried out. Until recently, the putty solution was prepared independently. For this purpose, took sawdust from the scraping machine (they are in a special dust-collecting sack) and mix it with parquet lacquer. The proportion is four parts of sawdust to one part of a varnish. However, today it is much simpler to purchase ready-made putty in the trade organization. The range of mixes is provided by all color variety and it is possible to find the necessary one in a tone of a specific tree.
Processing of a floor differs in nothing from paintings on walls and ceilings. It is applied with a spatula and spread on the surface in such way that cracks were filled with all the depth.
When putty is dried, the parquet must be re-subjected to grinding. This time is better to use the fine-grained abrasive, such as P100 or P120. Then it is necessary to carry out a careful cleaning.
The priming
After cleaning of a floor with the vacuum cleaner, two layers of primer are put. It is a special structure that will impregnate wood and will allow reducing of a varnish expense. In addition, the primer will help to keep the initial color of a tree. The structure is put in such way: the first layer – across texture, the second (without waiting for drying of the first) – is rubbed along. Total, two layers of primer are applied.
At this stage of refinishing, it is possible to see the texture of a tree or to give a saturated shade to the hardwood floor. For this purpose, use a variety of dyes and stains.
The applying of the varnish
The final stage of hardwood floor refinishing is the applying of the varnish. Work takes 
place in several stages:
- The surface is processed by the organic solvent and then the first varnish layer is carrying out (with a brush or the roller).
It is important! The varnish is put only along fibers, it will allow avoiding stains.
- After drying of the first layer, carry out the polishing of a floor with a special machine. Such processing will remove the smallest irregularities which can appear from behind air bubbles.
- Dust after polishing is cleaned up, floors are wiped with a damp rag, and after the second and the third varnish layers are applied.
The multi layered covering as much as possible will protect a floor from water; will increase its resistance to damages of mechanical nature. As a result, you will have the beautiful and brilliant hardwood flooring.
During the varnishing, it is needed to provide ventilation of the room. In addition, using of respirators will be not superfluous. In the process of drying, it is recommended to avoid direct sunlight on the surface.
The refinishing with oil
After putty and grinding, the surface is ready to covering applying. Oil is distributed on wood by a soft brush with a thin layer regularly. You shouldn’t try to pour more oil out, it won’t be absorbed and all excess should be thrown out. Further, it is necessary to wait that the structure was completely absorbed, and then to polish a floor. If there will be the several layers, then such process is repeated.
Unlike a varnish, oil gets into a structure of a tree but doesn’t form a safety film on its surface. Thus, the hardwood flooring looks more naturally. However, there are disadvantages. For example: after refinishing it is impossible to further to lay a varnish after oil (but after a varnish, it is only enough to grind a floor and then to use oil), it requires a careful attention and renovation of the oil layer. Only the varnish can add unique and fascinating gloss to a floor surface.
