I attempted to refinish my floors this past weekend and it ended in a disaster. I have "chatter" marks across the floor. Floor is made of oak but is veneer (or manufactured) with the top layer of oak at about 3-3.5mm thick and the bottom at around 3mm. Sandwiched in between is an oak but not surface quality.

The drum sand I used either had issues or my technique is not so good (my wife blames the sander, I think it's my technique . Unfortunately I discovered this after I applied poly. I know multiple sanding/refinishing of this type of floor is not recommended but I am faced with either sanding it one more time, or an expensive replacement. My sanding did not remove a significant amount - way less than 1mm. I need a professional opinion on if this chatter can be removed with this type of flooring (which is glued down). To remove the marks, the depth of the chatter is not significant so my opinion is that it can be removed by someone that actually knows what they are doing (not me). I have a sample piece and I have used an orbital sanded on it many times as I tested stains with plenty to go. I need someone's opinion - as with some of the calls made today to seek professional help - people seemed to shy away (i.e. run) from refinishing this type of floor, let alone trying to solve my problem.

Thanks in advance....desperate....

Patrick

Chatter is normally a machine problem but can also come from a few other things like not having the paper tension right. For the dyi many have had good results with a square buffer or usand machine. Both are slow going but when end result is more important that time spent its a good option.

This is the Hummel trio, which has the same orbiting as the U-sand