I'm about to refinish my solid 1/2" peg 'n groove flooring and I'm not sure how to deal with the v-groove. The floors is stained a medium dark color and the grooves are black, or close to it. But the grooves look kind of crappy and I'd like to sand or scrape them as part of the refinishing process. My questions are: 1. What can I use to score the v-groove and remove the crud/black finish? 2. If I decide to retain the black groove look, how do I re-stain/paint the grooves to make them black again?

Anyone know anything about this?

Thanks!

Cleaning up v-grooves (or bevels) is a miserable task. I have tried many different methods. They actually make a triangle shaped scraper blade ideal for bevels, except you have to keep it razor sharp and that is a chore in itself. I even made a router guide to route the bevels clean. It sorta worked. At least it gave me a machined edge. The problems with scraping are multiple. The tops of the edges get jagged and uneven, the results are iffy, and the worst is when the scraper hops out of the bevel and you put a huge scratch across the floor. My recommendation is to "gently" scrap the bevels clean. Don't try to strip all the color out, that won't happen anyway. Just clean out the crud. Take your time and go easy. Then refinish the floors as normal. In the end, bevels are what they are. They'll end up dirty and cruddy again in no time so why worry?

Thanks Gary,

After experimenting with various scraping devices last night, I've come to the same conclusion. If I only had to cleanup a foot long section - I could do it, but I could not come up with a method that would be efficient enough to do 120 sq ft of floor in a timely manner. It seems the best way to do it would be a router, but creating a guide that would be perfectly accurate, and would not require tacking it to the floor in some way, seems doubtful at best. I think what I thought was black is really just a buildup up crud and finishing material that sort of puddles in there. Just wanted to know that I wasn't missing some clever way to clean these out. Any idea where I could locate one of these triangular scrapers?


-Mark

I found mine at Orchard Supply Hardware. But I'm sure they can be found in many locations.
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page ... 20scrapers
http://www.amazon.com/Pack-Bahco-Carbid ... =UTF8&s=hi

Thanks.

Since you're the only one responding, can I ask your opinion on floor sanders. The Home Depot I checked rents the drum sander and the vibrating flat pad type sander, as well as edge sanders. Since I've never sanded a wood floor, and it sounds like you have, what did you use? I'm thinking the flat pad type will not be aggressive enough, and therefore I'm thinking of going with the drum. (The floor is not in horrible shape.) I'll just start off using 60 grit or so to see how aggressive the drum sander really is, only going to 36 grit if its neccessary.

I am a profesional flooring installer and finisher for over 25 yrs. I use only top of the line professional sanders. Rental sanders are less predictable as far as the results. I rarely have seen a novice first timer produce the results of a quality minded pro. However, a few guys have posted excellent results with the U-Sand type of sander that has four oscillating discs. It really boils down to what's available to rent, the time it will take you and what it's worth to you to do it yourself.
http://www.u-sand.com/

Thanks for your insight Gary - I do appreciate it. I'm very much of a do it yourself kind of guy and have done just about everything you can imagine around my house. I decided to farm this floor project out and have some professional do it. However, after coming out to see the job, he flaked and failed to call me back twice. That's my limit with professionals (no offense) and I decided that I'll do it myself. I'm confident/hopeful that I can pull it off with reasonable results.

Thanks again for responding to my posts - I appreciate professionals responding to do-it-yourselfers.

-Mark