I need to refinish the treds on my stairs. I have looked at some videos and it seems as easy (well not that easy) as sanding the tred and refinishing it with stain and sealer. I assume I can use my hand sander and start with maybe 80 grit and go to 300 grit.

I just don't want to hurt the wood.

Am I missing something?
Any help appreciated.

 

Do you want to completely refinish them? if so you need to sand down to raw wood. Probably start with 60 grit and work your way up to 120 grit. You'd also need a scraper to get into the corners. If you just want to freshen them up - sand with 150, remove the dust and apply a fresh coat of poly. There is never any reason to use sandpaper finer than 220 on woodwork.

 

Do I need to sand down to the bare wood if I am freshening?

Thanks

 

If staying with the same color you just need to get the varnish/poly off!

 

If you just want to refresh the finish all you need to do is scuff sand the existing finish so the poly will adhere well. You'd also want to sand down any scratches .... just not down to/thru the stain.

 

Previously sanded and finished wood may not take a stain as would a fresh piece of wood. Some of the pores may be perm. sealed and a stain will not soak into the wood. If the finish is just straight poly, you may be able to refresh with just a scuff and over application of poly.

In other words, if you plan to change the color of the stain, you may have some difficulty getting even coverage due to the fact that the wood was previously sealed.

 

So were getting some confusion here!

If the stain/color is good and all you want to do is freshen up the top clear coat finish, then correct you can scuff/light sand and recoat!

If you want to touch up/refresh the stain color (keeping the same) then you have to get below the top coat but since you are staying same color you dont have to sand all the way down to fresh wood.

Changing the color, got to get it all off so that all areas were stain and poly have soaked into the wood are gone, you are at a fresh start to change color!

 

Well, since the color of the top of the tread looks NOTHING like the color of the front of the nose, I would say his goal ought to be to sand down to bare wood so as to restain. Because those treads look pretty ugly, imo. I would think the top of the tread should match the nosing and the color of the rest of the floor.

Yes, you have to sand down to bare wood if you want the wood to accept the stain.

They kind of look like someone tried to strip them once and did a really poor job of sanding them. No one likes to sand so they give up too soon because they just want to get done. That's exactly what this looks like. But if they don't stain up the right color, why the heck would you poly over it when what you ought to be doing is keep sanding / move to a lower grit / keep sanding!

But you are going to have a really hard time sanding up to all those painted edges. IMO you will want to chemically strip it first, then there will be LOTS of hand sanding along all your edges, to blend in with the orbital sander you should be using on the wide open areas.

And if you are putting poly on, there is no reason you should have to sand higher than 120. I would sand with 80 after you strip, and finish sand the heck out of it with 120. Then test the color of your stain.