Our house is a 1910 farm house in good condition. We tore up the upstairs carpet to find we had nice hardwood floors. I was told by many sources that the Varathane ezV floor sander is one of the best / easiest sanders that you can rent and will take care of the job. I rented it from my local Lumber yard for 34.95 plus the sanding dics. I showed the guy a piece that i was replacing in a corner and he said i should be able to start out with a 50 sanding disc and then work to a 80 disc. He said it looks like a fur type wood. Very close grains and you wont find a lot with tight grains in today's woods used for remodeling. (I bought some 36 just in case i needed it being i live 45 minutes away)

When i got it home we started to go right to work. Well lets just say the 50 or 80 disc didn't cut through the top. So i slapped on the 36 grain sanding disc. OMG! It still wasnt cutting throught the top surface. It will sand a little area where it looks like "wow" then it quits. Only to find that whatever is coating the top surface of the wood is clogging the sanding disc. I was even told that it doesnt take long. It took me about three hours to do an area about 4x5 to what the floor should look like. I burned through 6 discs on this small area. The goop that is being pulled from the floor cracks loose from the disc when it cools off. SO i swapped the discs out time to time to alternate. I didn't have anyone to talk to being I was working on this project to late in the evening so im sure i wasted a lot of time. Is it some sort of wax/varnish used back in the day that needs to come off? I was told that today's varnish comes off easy with floor sanders.

What do i need to do to resolve this problem?


*Fortunately I have this sander for another whole day!


Thanks!!!

Most likely, your old floor has lots of paste wax on it. It is a finisher's nightmare. That EZ sander will take forever ( as you're finding out ). You will either need to hire a pro, or if you insist on doing it yourself, rent a drum sander and start with 24 grit. But I must warn you. It is easy to damage a hardwood floor with a drum sander and 24 grit operated by someone who has never run one before. Some pros will agree to do just the sanding for you, leaving the finishing for you. This could be a good way to go to save paying labor costs and still being involved in the project.

I agree with Gary it sounds like layers of wax. The last time I ran across wax I just used a hand scraper to remove it all, then I could just sand it normally. Depending on how large the job is this might be the way to go. If the wax has hardened it should flake off pretty easily just wear glasses as it will fly everywhere.

Ya, and you can boast about your vintage, hand scraped, wood flooring, you handscraped all by yourself.


Now, you can get the drift, why professional charge what they do.


You can always do this... Not really, just joking!!!!
(I was sent this picture from a fellow inspector a few years ago)

I will take your responses into consideration!!! Thanks everyone!

Is this one if those " You might be a redneck if " jokes?

WOW I'm impressed with that sanding equipment. Where can I buy one?

Now wrap the screed with some foam and tape on a boat cushion and presto - a seat for the grandboy. Additional weight for faster cutting and grandboy has a ridey horsey good time helping Gramps.

All that duct tape is holding a stack of bricks together, and attached to the rigged belt sander.

Perry, there's another use for your screed !

That is not a tile screed.

That is actually a European adhesive spreader. The Europeans and the UK are just now experimenting with hand trowels and trashing their knees like we do.

I'll be dipped !
I didnt notice the teeth in that thing It must take alot of patience to spread glue with it

Then that must be the latest technology in European drum sanders. Or belt, brick, spreader ,tape, sanders.

That is for adhesives like multi-purpose carpet adhesive. You can change the blade for different notching.

It is just like t-baring finish. Actually quite easy and your off your knees.

The guy I saw spreading wood glue, which looked runny compared to our MC urethane, was using a hand spreader, which looks like a big bondo spreader, but notched.
30 years ago when you bought a carpet power stretcher, it came with a flat spreader to hold the carpet on the pins, as you let off the handle on the power stretcher.