Tried to strip my old oak floors with a rented orbital sander last weekend

I thought it would be a straightforward weekend job, but the sander just kept leaving these weird, deep swirl marks all over the place no matter how slow I went. Turns out the rental place gave me the wrong grit sandpaper and I basically etched a pattern into the wood. What's the best way to fix this without having to sand everything down again from scratch?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayden_craig956d ago

Been there, you need a square buff sander with a higher grit to smooth those swirls out.

anna4916d ago

Wait, wouldn't a square buff sander just make more swirls? I mean, those are usually for applying wax on a car. For sanding out swirls in wood, I'd use a random orbital sander with a soft pad and like 320 grit paper, going really light.

terry8356d ago

Yeah, a square buff sander is for cars, not floors lol. That's gonna make it worse for sure. You need to level out those swirls, which means sanding the whole area again, but you don't have to go all the way back to bare wood. Start with a fresh random orbital and maybe 80 grit to cut the swirls out, then work your way back up through the grits. It's a pain, but trying to spot-fix it will just leave a bumpy mess.