Hey folks, so this has been my first foray into working with hardwoods.
I just bought a home and was interested in a very dark espresso-like color for the floors. I rented a U-Sand orbital sander for a couple of days and ordered a whole bunch of sandpaper from CherryHill manufacturing in 40 grit, 60 grit, and 80 grit.

Right off the bat I felt like my unit had issues because the sandpaper didn't seem to be wearing too much and still had some tooth to it after 20 minutes (just a very frayed edge) of sanding. The folks at CherryHill assured me that it was probably just uneven floors and not that the backing pads were worn, and to continue on changing sanding discs frequently, so I did. It was painstakingly slow but I put in a good 20 hours over those 2 days and got the floors down to bare wood. Along the edges I used a scraper in the corner and my Porter Cable orbital hand sander when the U-Sand couldn't reach.

Finishing sanding I noticed that in some areas (the edges between boards) I could still see a glossy finish, but today I vacuumed everything really well and wiped the floor down with mineral spirits in anticipation of starting to stain. I'm using General Finishes Water-based Ebony dye, followed by General Finishes Water-based Espresso stain. After applying the dye in one corner I see this, pretty disappointed because I see how good it could look without the imperfections:

Most of the area took the dye just lovely, and it was very easy to work with. But rubbing over the blotchier areas (slick surfaces) and noticing the "halo" effect around the room, my suspicion is didn't sand enough in these lighter spots. Can anyone confirm that?

Is it ok for me to go in and touch up with either the orbital, or some sandpaper in the same grits by hand and then re-dye to see if the grain is opened up a bit. I may try this tomorrow.

My other question is this dye by itself is so close to the color I was looking to do, I'm wondering if I can just Poly over it alone once I'm satisfied? I had been advised I would need to follow with the Espresso stain as well.

Many thanks to any seasoned vets that can advise.

Oh yeah, and if I wanted to verify an area was uniform before applying dye would wiped mineral spirits basically dry up and evaporate in the areas that need more sanding first? Thanks.

you don't need to stain over the dye if you are satisfied but that job needs to be sanded correctly..you can do anything you want when its your own home.

Thanks for the advice James. So today I've spent some additional time with the orbital hand sander in other areas and it came out a little better. Trouble is its hard for me to tell where more sanding is needed. Maybe that's one disadvantage with the orbitals. Any ideas on how to best do touch up and tackle the sides? Really having trouble with scraping and hand sanding the edges. Doesn't seem to remove much finish at all.

rent the proper equipment.

an edger, a drum sander, ..get everything stripped to same grit.

use finish sanders to blend edges./..you can go over with the orbital at that point as you are sure to have imperfect sanding as a beginner..it may help even tjhings out..also use a buffer with a screen for final prep..