We live in a 1939 Texas pier-and-beam home with 3/4 inch thick white oak floors. We've sanded with a 40-60-80-100 grit sequence. We're going to eventually screen and then finish with a clear water based finish (Lock'n'Seal + StreetShoe).

Unfortunately after we sanded (and not before), we decided we'd like to do some weaving of boards in two areas of our living/dining room. One section is a 10x3 section of old water damaged wood. The other section is 5 linear feet of where a wall used to stand. Previous owners spliced in short 4 inch pieces to fill in that gap, and it looks really bad. We plan on getting professionals to put in the new wood, but we'd like to finish the sanding job.

The problem we have is that the boards were refinished before, so between that and our job we have already lost about 1/8 of an inch. When we put in the new boards, they will be sticking up ~1/8 inch over the old boards.

How do we remove this extra material? Do we plane the boards first? Do we go at the large level areas with a drum sander and the rest with a belt sander? Is it possible to sand down the new wood without sanding -- or minimally sanding -- the old wood? Is there any reason to re-sand the entire room?

Thanks! This forum has been incredibly valuable to us.

I'm no flooring expert- but I am a very good carpenter (DIY'er) so I'll take a stab at this.

If I was faced with this job, assuming you have not yet intalled the new boards, I would use a Surface Planer to remove the excess thickness. You can remove thickness in approximately 1/32" at a time, or up to 1/16" in one pass.
If the new boards are finished in some way, or are nicely sanded on one side then it would be best to take the material off the backside of each board.

Most Big Box stores sell, or likey rent, surface planers. A decent Dewalt planer can be had for around $400 and is worth it if you have lots of boards to do. You can always sell it on Craiglist later.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_221857-70-DW734_0__?productId=1061487&Ntt=dewalt+surface+planer&pl=1&currentURL=%2Fpl__0__s%3FNtt%3Ddewalt%2Bsurface%2Bplaner&facetInfo=

vantred,

Don't plane down the bottom, only from the top. Flooring has a tonque and groove, the fit would not change when you take it from the back and you would still have the top stick out while you created an airgap below the flooring with taking of from the bottom.

Johannes

Good point. I didn't think of that!!.....