Sanding floorboards

oxygen_old

Hi, I juts bought a old house. I pulled up all the carpets and there is quite nice oak floor boards beneath them, so I said I would sand them. I borrowed my parents 4inch belt sander, got a couple of belts and got to work, however.... dum dum dum!!!

After about 5 minutes, one belt was completely knackered. There 11 euro for 3 belts. and it didn't even make much of a dent on the floor. I think what happened was when they laid down the carpet, they used a glue on the floor. This is clogging up the belt sander. I think what I need is a something to remove the top layer of crap from the floor boards, without doing any massive damage to the floor boards? Is there anything like this?

Feckin house, so far if it hasn't been an arse its been an elbow.

northdublin

had a similar problem in a house i renovated, what i did was to take up the floor carefully and turn it upside down. this left me with an untreated surface which i found easy to give a good sanding then a couple of coats of oak varnish. i set the dept of the balde on my skill saw and cut along the joint of the nearest board to the skirting, this allowed me to get a start on one board. i also had the skirtings off but in my case they went right in under the render of the wall.if its a large room i would hire a walk along belt sander with an extraction hoover, especially if there old boards with varnish on them the dust could be toxic.

oxygen_old

Thanks for that. Ill try it, turning the floorboards upside down could turn out to be a hellofa job tho

ednwireland

either that or rent a drum sander ! easy to leave drum shaped hollows though
i assume your belts are getting full of varnish so the other option is to nitromoors (paint stripper) the planks to get the varnish off and then sand it with the belt sander. mind you i did an old ceiling and resorted to stripping then sanding nitromoors down your arms isnt fun

oxygen_old

thx for the feedback, I think Ill try that drum sander. This is kinda go-ey stuff they laid the carpet with, there no even varnish underneeth it. Dont think stripper will do it. Actually I will probably try stripping a bit first, if that fails, bring in the drum sander.

bakerbhoy

Had a similar problem with old glue on floor boards.Tried acetone etc to soften and scrape.In the end an orbital sander with rough paper was the man, ripped the glue of the boards no bother.Just be careful not to leave the sander in one spot too long as it will start to bore in.

oxygen_old

cheers for the adv guys. In the end alot of paint thinners done the job. Was releived I didnt have to drum sand of lift the floorboards