Best Way To Sand Swirl Marks Out Of Oak Floors

Finishing hardwood floors is one of the more tricky aspects to installing floors.

Best way to sand swirl marks out of oak floors. Unfortunately swirl marks tend not to show up until finish or stain is applied. You can do the edges with an orbital sander 4 x8 with 80 grit sandpaper before screening. After removing the swirl marks and imperfections sand the entire floor again with 60 80 grit followed by 80 100 120 grit. I remove heavy millmarks with 80.

If there are some scratches that are very deep you can scrape them out with a hand scraper first before the screening. Believe me if you skip to a higher grit and don t remove them they ll bite you in the butt in the finishing process. Even if you follow the first four directions you are likely to still have some edger swirl. Rubio monocoat recommends finishing the hardwood with 120 grit so that is what i did.

If the sanding or screening process is done improperly swirl marks will appear on the floor. But by this point it should be shallow and easily erased with aggressive hand sanding parallel to the grain. Use a flashlight to identify any remaining edger swirl and sand it out by hand before you even think about applying finish. Make sure you re sanding with a high enough grit that your swirl marks are small enough they aren t noticed.

The important part is to never skip a grit or a section of the floor during finish sanding. Then finally screen the entire floor with 100 grit screen. If the floor has only a couple of swirl marks you don t have to refinish the entire floor.