I own a flooring company and do really good work. I recently installed an unfinished Moabi floor. I sanded starting with 60 then edged with 60. Drum sanded again with 120. Filled it with wood doe the glitsa one, wood flour cement. Final edged with 120. Sanded the filler of again with 120 belt, final cut. Buffed the floor with a 17" 120 3m sandpaper disc, yellow ones with vecro then again with 150 screen. I went crazy on the buffer because I noticed drum lines. They never totally went away. Should I have used a 100 belt in between on the second cut? Do you think I'm seeing 60 lines or 120? Moabi caught me off guard on how hard it is. Should I hard plate or maybe go with an 80 on the first cut? I know a lot of questions but I. Could use this help. I don't think the job is bad enough to resand. Oh so you know I went 2 coats bacca one satin top coat, glitsa. Thanks - Scott

youre seeing the 60 lines. You cant jump that many grits on hard woods like that and be able to take out more than one grit jumps scratch depth. When you do that you essentially just knock off the tops of the ridges left from the 60 and leave the valleys.

those are definatley 60 marks, should have thrown a 80 in there, me personally would have gone 40 to ensure it was flat, then 60, 100, and 120 on the buffer.
leaving the floor like it is the finish will wear off in half the time because of all the peaks and valleys

So the job actually turned out good. After the final coat it is very hard to see any marks at all. I tend to be overly critical. Thanks for the advice and I will do an 80 next time around. Oh by the way 60 got the floor flat no problem.

I'm chiming in a bit late but thought I could add my 2 cents. First, I haven't worked with moabi yet. If it happens to be very hard like maple, then I think I see the issue . Jumping grits is one thing but if your wood is hard as heck, you have to go past 120 and head right to 150 before you buff. I use a hummel and my local supply company keeps 150 grit 3M belts in stock which I pretty much only use for maple, herringbone and parquet floors.

With my hummel, a jump from 60 to 120 on oak is no problem at all and on something crazy hard like maple, is not ideal but still do-able . I normally go 40 to 80 and then 150 and each pass totally removes the prior sanding lines and creates new ones.My hummel has a 3 position tension setting and my final cut is in the lightest setting for minimal down pressure.

That being said, the buffing is still long and arduous. And it sounds like you did it the way I would. In addition to what you did, you can try popping the grain of the wood with water before buffing . I use a 9 inch padco on a pole to do it quickly. The raised sanding lines will buff out more easily than a non popped floor.

Another machine out there is the Lagler trio which is a hybrid edger / buffer . It is a multi disc buffer basically and can get sanding lines out of the floor more effectively than a disc buffer can. On that note, home depot rents a similar type of multi disc sander that may work to similar effect. I saw one in action last year and it doesn't cut the mustard for sanding but might be a good alternative to the lagler trio for really dense floors or patterned floors like parquet or herringbone.