My question is at the bottom of this rant, if you wanto skip all of
the back story I want to share the gory details of my
mis-adventures, ask a couple of questions, and record for posterity
how to avoid these headaches for those that come after me. Basically
my easy do-it-yourself project refinishing my hardwood floors had
turned into a nightmare.

I decided to take out the carpet in my house and refinish the floors.
800 square feet, weekend project, no problem. Home Depot was helpful,
suggesting a square buffer/sander to take off the old finish and
stain, and I should have no problem. I swept, mopped and mopped again
with TSP as recommended, and then I brought in the sander. Within 15
seconds, the sand paper was gummed up, hard little beads of gunk
clinging to the grit, making the paper ineffective. After trying again
with another sheet, I took it back to Home Depot. The helpful folks in
the rental dept had no idea what it was, so the sent me to paint. No
help there either, so i tried Lowes, Sevens, and about three other
places in town. Nobody could tell me what it was and how to avoid it,
so I researched it online and found a few suggestions, wet sanding,
oiling the paper, all of which failed to cut through the gunk.

I finally got a professional on the phone who suggested I needed a
drum sander to get more aggressive with the finish. The drum sander
did a better job, but still got gummed up relatively quickly, and
basically heated the finish up enough that it began to bead up and
fall away. I was unable to get it all up though, and I was still
pretty far from bare wood.

The next thing I tried was a chemical stripper. this again was
relatively effective, but even after the stripper, I wasn not able to
get all the way down to the bare wood to remove the stain.

I was beaten. I broke down and called in a prfessional company to get
the sanding done, and figured I could stain and finish it myself. They
did a fantastic job, the floors were clean and smooth, and I was ready
to get it all finished.

The stain went on nice, and I chose to use Pro Finisher oil based poly
urethane in a semi-gloss. I swept, vacumed and tack-clothed the floors
and began to spread the finish. I used a lambs wool applicator and
took my time spreading it thinly over the floors. No matter how
careful I was, though, I still got foamy-bubbles every time I changed
the direction of the brush. After the first coat dried, I was
dissapointed. Lots of bubbles, and the finish was uneven and had tons
of grit and hairs stuck in it. After it dried, i used an orbital
sander and 220 grit, and tried to sand out all of the bubbles and
flaws. Swept, vacumed and tack clothed again and applied a second
coat. same results with the finish, and now I am about to cry.

My question (if you are still reading) is what can I do to keep the
bubbles out of the final coat? I know I am going to have to basically
sterilize the house to keep the grit and hairs out, but the bubbles
and uneven thicknesses of the finish are killing me.

Why not hire a professional to do it? Even in my (expensive) area I didn't
pay more than about $1.50 per square foot. You're probably already halfway
there...


Dimitri

I tend to stay away from the oil finishes, and mainly use waterbourne
or oil modified, but the directions on all should read the same,
something like:

Apply with sweeping turns at the end of each pass, maintaining a wet
edge and following the direction of the grain.

You should really never be changing direction, but should be dragging
the applicator along, plowing the finish in front of it, and pivoting
the applicator at the end of each pass, with at least some overlap.

That being said, you are finding out the hard way that
sanding/finishing hardwood floors is really best left to the pros,
which is what I do, even though I have redone at least 4500 sf myself.

JK