Broke the #1 rule

Red Adair said, "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur."

Ran the guy off today and could use some advice. Poor sanding job in general, especially along the edges...

Can I salvage anything?

 

I think before anyone can offer a useful opinion a more complete and lengthy description of what you are referring to would be needed.

Pictures would help us offer a specific solution.

 

As Greg noted, more info is needed. Generally a bad finish job can be fixed it's just a matter of how much work it will take. It could be as simple as a light sanding and another coat of poly or as drastic as sanding done to raw wood and starting over.

 

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Thanks for the reply... here are a few pictures. Had trouble uploading earlier

 

Has any finish been applied or is it bare wood?
What did he use to sand the floor?

 

I agree, what did he use to sand the floor with.... a circular saw?? I really don't know how it could be left in this condition using the proper tools, OR using the proper tools....properly.

 

It looks to me like it's been stained but no poly. The floor needs to be resanded! Are you wanting to do it yourself or hire it out? Anytime you hire a new contractor it is imperative to check his references. The better contractors cost a little more and have a busier schedule but will do the job right.... and when mishaps occur - they correct them at no cost to the customer.

 

Not to make excuses for poor workmanship but the floor does look like it was in very poor condition before he started.
Many of those gouges and scratches were probably there before the job began.
It possibly was a case of biting off more than he could chew.

If you are going to try to fix this yourself or again hire an amateur a large vibrating pad sander is pretty much foolproof.
As uneven as that floor looks though be prepared to use a lot of sanding pads.

 

He was using a drum sander. Only "one" coat of stain has been applied. Looks to me like they did not use a baseboard edger or anything and left markings against the wall...

I only paid the guy for the satin that was left. I checked references but I sense those were staged. Next time I need to take a little more time and visually see prior work.

From a cost saving aspect I would like to do it myself. I have about 600 SQ feet.

Is renting an orbital floor sander less "aggressive" and more forgiving than the drum sander? More time consuming perhaps?

There are some some deep scuffs from prior damage and i can accept those. I do not like the the markings left behind along the baseboards.



Thanks,

 

Thanks,

That looks to be the route I will take,

 

Thankfully not all 600 sq feet has been stained yet. Im off to the HD to get the pad sander they have..

 

We did our maple floors before we moved into our current home and found the makers of these vibrating sanders grossly underestimate the amount of sandpaper it would take.
We used around 10x the amount of sandpaper Flecto recommended but it was partially because of being a harder maple surface and the previous owner used a belt sander which left a very uneven surface.

Our rental was a lrge square pad that pretty much went up to the wall and didn't require any other sander to finish the edges.

 

12'x 4-5' section took about a hour to get back to the natural wood. Using a 12"x18" pad sander with 36 grit paper. Still on the same sheet of sandpaper. using my air compressor, I stopped periodically to blow away the dust on the floor and the buildup on the sandpaper.

Attached are some pictures. The wider markings are the new damage, the smaller lines we there prior.

 

Is there any way to repair the 6-8" along the wall or is the only way is to sand down all the way?

 

I personally would take the time to sand out the gouges with the big sander.
A short cut would be to spot sand with a belt sander but it would be noticeable.

 

I wouldn't use a belt sander - too easy to make it worse

Using a buffer [or a drum sander] to sand the floor requires the use of an 'edger' for the places the buffer can't get to. While I've never used one or even seen one in person, I've heard of the square floor sanders that Greg used. If he claims it eliminates the need for an edger - I'd take his word for it

Unless you get rid of ALL the marks in the wood - they will show. The darker the stain the worse they will look.

 

The pad sander Greg was talking about worked nicely. I will work try today with a an air block sander along the edge and see what that resolves.

Is trying a stain-able putty or wood filler or putty an option?

 

Where do you want to use it? It's good for cracks/voids but not for dents/scratches.

 

How much of the damage did the pad sander resolve?
I agree, putty will not be a good fix.
The thing is that if the deep gouges are fully sanded to bare wood they would not be as noticeable, even if you used the same color stain.

You say you are on the same sheet of sandpaper but I highly suspect you are using it too long.
Our floors had been previously done by a hand belt sander and actually didn't look that bad when we decided to refinish them.
Once we got the sander on it the high and low spots became obvious and is one reason we used so much paper.

There was a point where even though the paper felt and looked reasonable it became very slow at removing material.
On our floor it was after about 20 minutes and you could easily tell that progress was slowing and there even was a noticeable sound difference to the machine.

I would suggest that you might want to change your paper much sooner and use the coarsest grit you can get.
All you might be doing after a time by stretching the paper is overworking the machine and spreading dust.

Some pics would be good.

 

I would add that while a coarse grit is best for the initial sanding you'll need to progress to finer grits before the wood is ready for stain/poly.