What Grit To Use On Oak Hardwood

The initial coarse grits remove the finish and flatten the wood.

What grit to use on oak hardwood.

You need to progress through every grit to polish off the scratches left by the previous grit. My wife wants a cherry stain the oak floors in the rest of the house that had hardwoods were done with on a red oak floor. This should usually be the starting grit for a hardwood floor with heavy adhesive e g. As with the drum sander start with course grit paper and then move to finer grades.

Floors that have been painted may even require you to go tougher and use 24 or 16 grit paper. If the hardwood floor can handle another sanding plan to be aggressive about it. Use as the starting grit for floors with shellac finishes single layers of paint or some very hard floors like maple. A lower number means coarser and more abrasive.

If you skip more than one grit in the sanding sequence you end up with the first cut leaving deep scratches into the wood and the second cut having too fine of a grit to take out the first scratch. But that s not enough. Sandpaper grit designations might be the opposite from what you think. Use the edger using the same grit you just used on the drum to sand all the areas that the drum couldn t reach.

Scratches are more visible on fine grain wood like birch or maple so go to 100 grit. On most jobs the sequence is 24 36 60 80 for coarse grain wood like oak. Use a radiator edger to sand under all radiators or toe kicks if you have them. Start with 36 grit sandpaper for a floor that hasn t been sanded in a long time or that has a lot of heavy finish on it.

For either soft or hardwoods start around 50 grit and gradually step down to 120 grit. A higher number means a finer softer sandpaper grit. Start with a 60 grit sandpaper but if the floor is in really bad shape you may have to use 36 grit paper. An edger can be difficult to control so practice your technique on scrap wood first.

The coarse paper will remove the old finish and smooth the oak floor. This peak and valley profile will leave a rough looking floor and if stained cause uneven staining see the guide to abrasives sidebar below. Repeat steps 4 through 6 until you have sanded the entire floor through 80 grit or 100 grit for maple floors or oak floors that will be stained. The process can.

One question did arise any guidelines to use in the amount of sandpaper to get. Was hoping to find a guide like 5 sheets of each grade for a 12x 12 room or something like that. They were well worth the.