I'm in the process of cleaning up the decks at my center and want to know what everyone thinks would be a good durable filler for minor dings and shallow pits in the pine deck . I have plenty of urethane for my top coat but I want something that will stand up to the abuse of balls rolling over it and pins banging around on it. Would a sawdust/glue mixture meet this requirement or am I going to have to spend extra money and use some sort of epoxy filler. I'm looking at 1/8" deep x 1" x 5" as my worst depression....anything bigger than that I'm routing out and replacing the board. Would also be up for any tips or tricks from anyone that has done bowling alley work before.

I would just use a standard wood filler. Some popular brands are timbermate and woodwise. I would sand off the top layer of flooring, trowel fill the entire floor with the filler and then proceed with sanding process. The progression we normally use is 36 grit, 50, 80 for the drum sander and 36, 50, 100 for the edge sander. Then we buff the floor with a 100 grit hard plate paper disc and then screen buff the floor with a 120 sanding screen. I would paint lines after the first coating.


If your not sanding the floor down and just doing more of a recoating, then I would just use a wood putty rather than filler. Then seal the putty in with the finish. Some brands of putty are duraseal, woodwise, varthane, & minwax.