Browse Forums Flooring & Floor Covering Re: Levelling Timber floor for floating floorboards 21Dec 22, 2007 7:35 pm Well done HP.... Now you're an expert!!!! Re: Levelling Timber floor for floating floorboards 22Dec 22, 2007 9:30 pm A gloss oil-based polyurethane wil give you the ultimate hardwearing finish. There are many brands on the market, I've had good feedback on the Feast Watson Floorproof. Re: Levelling Timber floor for floating floorboards 23Jan 05, 2008 6:58 pm Good Choice HP.
The floors are already in good condition and should come up a treat. Once you've replaced the damaged boards. Here's how to do them. Drill a hole beside the joists - which will fit a jigsaw blade. Then cut the board beside the joist with the jigsaw enough so you can remove it. Then you nail a 25mm wide x 50mm high piece of timber to the joist so it is level witht he joist and the replacment board can rest on it when you put it in. This is neater than cutting the board on top of the joist with a circular saw. Once repaired - Punch all the old nails down 2 or 3 mm across all the floor - then putty them up - I've used a standard wood putty which works well and make sure it matches the timber colour. Then goto the local hire company and hire a drum sander designed for floors, and also hire the edging sander if you do not have a belt sander for the sides task. Ring around - some of the hire costs are almost double the $$$ of others. You'll need one of these http://www.camdenhire.com.au/equipment/detail.asp?product_id=1154 and one of these. http://www.camdenhire.com.au/equipment/detail.asp?product_id=1260 Ask them to also supply you with the sandpaper on a - if returned unused on credit basis - so you can take more than you need and not have to pay for it. Make sure you have some good quality earmuffs and dust mast and a vaccuum cleaner. Then clear the room of furnture etc, and sweep and vacuum it before you start. Then start sanding as per the links below. The trick is to NOT stop moving with the sander at any time and to also start moving the sander before it touches the floor. Start in an area that will be under the lounge or corner etc, so if you really get it wrong - it won't stand out. Happy sanding. Once you have done the several paper grades and vacuumed between each, mop it with a water and a mop to get the dust up, then block the doors with towels etc to stop dust entering the area. then apply the coating. Light sand each coat with fine sandpaper by hand or with an orbital is a good idea to get it smoother, and then apply the 2nd coat and your done. I've used Solver Poly Urethane products 3 times and it's as tough as nails - Once in a cafe and it lasted years with no visible wear. Steve These links will help. http://www.timber.org.au/Resources/DS4%20Sanding%20&%20Finishing%20Oct%202005.pdf http://timbercareonline.com.au/diy-sandingtips.php Re: Levelling Timber floor for floating floorboards 24May 25, 2009 2:04 am I wonder how your floors look now, a year or so later? Honestly, no need at all to worry about the dogs - pick a semi-gloss polyurethane and the floors will look great for years. I have a super-active 28kg labrador who scrambles all over the cypress pine floors and it still looks great. Re: Levelling Timber floor for floating floorboards 25May 25, 2009 7:03 pm Hi deaneconomou You won't believe it, I STILL haven't gotten around to it. However, I did get around to buying all the gear I need to do it, including the polyurethane. I intend to do it sometime before this summer, and I will post pictures of the end results. It should look quite good as I have spent the past year doing everything else, such as new curtains and wall repairs. In fact, your enquiry has remotivated me !!\ Stay tuned... Re: Levelling Timber floor for floating floorboards 26Jan 03, 2011 9:19 pm Hi everyone. It has taken more than three years for me to get around to finishing this job, but I have finally got it done!!! I am very happy with the results and would encourage anyone with pine floors to give it a go. Thank you to all of you who responded with advice and for talking me around to doing the sanding rather than the other options. I have written about it in more detail on my blog (http://thehumanpotato.blogspot.com/2010/12/varnishing-point.html) but here is the short version... I hired the drum sander and edger from Bunnings for four hours to do a 16 square metre area and we only just got it done in time. We only used 80 grit paper but I think it would have been worthwhile going over it with 120 grit because I can see some scoring when I look closely. It doesnt matter with our floors because we were not looking for a perfect mirror finish but for some people it might not be ideal. We used a Cabots water based satin varnish and 4 litres gave us enough to comfortably do 3 coats over 16 square metres of pine floor boards. The first coat used almost half a can but the other coats used far less. The edger was well worth the money and I am very glad we paid extra to hire it. It would have taken forever to finish the edges with my Ryobi random orbit sander. It took a fair amount of muscle to keep it under control though. It was well worth the effort to make sure no dust would escape the room. One mistake I made, though, was to remove the towels from under the doors when we started varnishing : some dog hair blew under the door while the varnish was wet and is now a permanent part of our floor !! We did not bother buffing or sanding between coats of varnish. As mentioned we were not trying to get a perfect finish. I guess if you were aiming for a full gloss coating you would have to go to a lot more trouble than we did, but we merely wanted a water resistant satin finish that exposed unstained pine floorboards and to achieve this effect did not require much skill or experience. After using the drum sander for 5 minutes I found it easy to control and with pine being so soft it was easy to remove ugly marks etc. We plan to sand the rest of the house now that we have a better idea of what we are doing. If you plan on doing the same I recommend you start with the least valuable room to practice on and by the time you have done it you will know all you need to know to do the rest of the house ! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Levelling Timber floor for floating floorboards 27Jan 03, 2011 9:35 pm You've done a fabulous job~ Good on you for coming back to share the experience You must be stoked with the results, well done Thanks Simon, I guess I'm no concerned with the volume of the noise rather that dead and hollow sound and feel that is associated with floating floors. But I'm not sure… 3 6111 Hi guys, I want to do some floor levelling before laying the planks and am considering doing it with self-levelling or yellow tongue PB board. I am wondering which one… 0 6510 Thanks, that's the motivation I needed to give it a try sooner rather than one day! 4 2983 |