Tips for Sanding Heart Pine Flooring

Heart pine flooring is some of the most beautiful and rustic looking floorings in the world. Many people seek out this look because it is definitely one-of-a-kind. After several years, you may find it necessary to refinish your heart pine flooring. In order to do this, you are going to need to sand it first. There are definitely some mistakes that you could make during this process if you do not know how to do it. Here are some tips for standing heart pine flooring.

Proper Tools

When you are sanding heart pine flooring, you are going to want to make sure that you have the proper tools. You are going to need the proper equipment to sand the floor. In most cases, this is going to require that you rent a belt sander. You will also need to get a sander that works around the edge of the room.

Dust

The process of sanding a heart pine floor is going to create a great deal of dust. When you start the refinishing process later, you are going to want to make sure that all of the dust is removed. If there are any specks of dust left on the floor, they will be trapped under the finish, and it can make the floor look very bad. Because of this, you are going to want to address the dust problem while you are sanding. If you can get access to one, you should think about getting a dustless floor sander. While the name implies that there will be no dust, there will still be some amount of dust. However, dust is going to be greatly reduced. Basically, it looks up to a vacuum that sucks the dust-up as you sand. If you cannot get one of these, you need to periodically stop and vacuum up the dust with a regular vacuum.

Take Your Time

Once you start sanding the heart pine flooring, you are going to want to be sure to take your time. This is not a job that you want to rush through quickly. If you rush through, you can cause damage to the floor that is irreparable. When you are sanding, you want to be deliberate and always keep the sander moving slowly. If you keep the sander in one place for too long, it can get down into the flooring too far. These mistakes are very hard to correct later.

Change the Grit

When you start out the process, you are going to want to begin with smaller grit sandpaper. For example, you might want to begin with a 60 grit sandpaper. As you finish the floor with this sandpaper, you will want to move up to a higher grit such as 80. After that, you will then want to move to 100 grit sandpaper so that it will produce a very fine finish for you to work with.