David Nebenzahl wrote in
.com:

On 5/14/2009 6:53 AM dadiOH spake thus:

4. Finish with the "screen". When you hink you are finished, do it
again.

5. Apply finish

You left out a very important step the

4a. Clean.

Several years ago when I moved into my original live/work space, I
refinished the mezzanine floors which were 5" diagonal rough pine
boards. Sanding went fairly quickly; so did varnishing.

What took the most time--several days, in fact, for the entire ~1000
square feet, was cleaning. Getting rid of all the sanding dust, plus
all the other crap that had accumulated in the gaps between the
boards.

Now, in this case, presumably the floor is flat without gaps, so you
won't have to dig out and vacuum up popcorn, paper clips, grains of
rice, boogers, cigarette butts, roaches (the kind you smoke, not the
insects), beads, pebbles and other crap.

But it'll still take a pretty long time to vacuum up all the dust, if
you're at all interested in doing a good job without blobs of dirt and
dust stuck in the varnish. Plan on *at least* a full day for this
phase of the job, I'd say.



Good point David!

Prior to putting down the first coat of poly I vacuumed EVERYTHING in the
room - walls, doorframes, tops of molding around windows and doors and of
course the floors - EVERYTHING. Waited some hours for the dust to settle.
Wipe down floor with paint thinner and a rag. Can of poly recommended
that one. Let that dry a bit then a onceover with a tack cloth. Tack
cloth between coats as well. Thinner too I think. Can't recall.