this was all brown carpet and nasty painted handrail.

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Sean, you doing finish in place now? Looks good. What sanders are you using? Got dust control?

for a couple of years now Gary. Have a floorcrafter, an essex edger and a 1600 clarke buffer with the alto vac. Got the buffer and vac as a package from hoboken. the vac works great with the edger and buffer.

I think I got the same set-up, or similar. Mine is the Clarke RS 16 DC and the Clarke Cav 12 vacuum with the hoses and adapter for the buffer and my Clarke Super 7 edger. Still using my old Hummel belt sander with a bag. Yeah, the little Clarke vacuum works pretty good and is easy to clean. Portable and keeps airborne dust way down. In fact, almost zero airborne dust now from edging and buffing. What type and brand of floor stains and finishes are you currently using?

Mostly bona drifast stains and basic emulsion or parks oil. I personally prefer the look of oil, some of the waterbase finished look a little plasticy.(is that a word?). Yeah I think a bag on the big machine is fine when your using th vac on the buffer and edger. The heavier dust seems to stay on the floor and the vac works great, I sometimes turn it off when buffing to make sure the buffer is cutting, big difference with and wthout.!

Have you tried BONA Traffic in satin? I have a few very picky general contractors. These guys invented the term. They expect furniture quality (yeah, I know) but after I have finished the floors with Traffic satin, they could not say enough good things. Of course, all the cudos went to the finish and none to the finisher . But at any rate, try it sometime on a high end floor. Does not look plasticy, IMO. I'll stain (if called for) with Dri-Fast (my fav), then seal with Bona Dri-Fast Sealer (which is an oil-based poly sealer), then two coats of Traffic satin at about 450 sq.ft. per gallon per coat. Looks phenominal and wears well. Definitely pricey way to go but for those customers willing to pay, there's nothing better (that won't burn your eyes out of your skull and melt your shoes).

We just had 850 sf of BC put down with Bona DTS and three coats of Bona Traffic Semi-Gloss and I think it looks fantastic. Even with the semi the shine isn't too much.

That being said, they did go light on the Bona though. So, the three coats only used 3 gallons. The installer said the reason was because they sanded with 220 before putting down the first coat which caused less to be stuck in the grain. I don't know if that's true or not. But, I did see that while they were putting it down, that if they didn't put it on at the rate they did, there was potential pooling.

Regardless, we don't wear shoes around here, so the finish should last a while. Don't know what to do with the extra 2 gallons of Traffic now. Although I suppose I could use one of them on the staircase.

Are you saying they applied Traffic at 850 sq.ft. per gallon? I'm amazed it looked good. The recommended rate is half that and I typically go about 450 ft. per gallon. There is always the potential for puddling if it isn't spread well. You're basically mopping a puddle around. But hey, if it looks good, that's fine. Three very thin coats are similar to two medium coats. And now, you have some finish to re-coat with, if it doesn't go bad before you use it. It does have a shelf life; about one year.

Yeah. I also questioned them about the spread rate. But, they actually showed me the puddles that were forming at greater application rates. They also made the point that since I had bought the traffic it's not like they were trying to save money on materials. True.

The way I'm looking at it is how you said. Two medium coats of finish, with the main advtantage of the third application being the final sanding (or whatever it is that's done between coats). The floor is absoultely smooth. I'd up a picture, but I'm not sure that it would be possible to really determine anything from that.