The cost of a high-quality wooden floor or parquet is quite high, and when after a few years the boards begin to fade and wear out, there is a desire to update them.
It is quite expensive to completely re-cover the flooring, and the procedure for laying the boards takes a lot of time. In this case, manual or mechanical scraping of the wooden floor is carried out - fast and economical way return the flooring to its original appearance.
During the scraping process with wooden surface a layer whose thickness does not exceed tenths of a millimeter is scraped off. The treatment allows you to clean and return the original color to the parquet or floorboards and renew the appearance.
Purpose of the procedure
When sanding an old wooden floor, cracks and sags, stains from oil and other stubborn dirt are eliminated, which ultimately extends the life of the coating. After sanding, a floor made of any wood looks much better. You can scrape not only parquet, but also simple floors made of pine boards.
Note! The wood must be thoroughly dry before sanding. This is especially true for new floors.
If the boards are very worn out (thin), rotten, or loose, then they need to be replaced. You can carry out scraping with minimal material costs if you rent a machine and do all the work yourself. Let’s figure out what the sequence of actions is, whether it’s possible to repair the floors yourself or whether it’s wiser to invite specialists.
Most in a budget way is to use a hand scraper, which is a scraper with a metal tip. An alternative is to use sheets attached to a sheet holder sandpaper. These methods require virtually no money, but are very labor-intensive. Therefore, they are usually used for cosmetic spot repairs, and when comprehensively updating a wooden floor, machine options are preferred.
Equipment
The scraping technology involves the use of the following types of devices:
- drum (tape);
- disk;
- peeling;
- corner (border).
Cars drum type allow processing in a short time large area. However, they cannot ensure a uniform thickness of floor covering removal. Therefore, they are usually used only for removing the top layer of paint or varnish, when quality can be sacrificed for speed.
Disk-type devices are available for household and professional use. Disc machines allow you to process wooden floors efficiently, without leaving any unevenness on the surface. The disadvantages of using it include the high cost. Typically, scraping machines of this class are used by teams of professionals involved in finishing the premises. The device is equipped with discs with fine, medium and coarse fractions of abrasive material.
A stripper is used to remove old coating from a surface. The device is equipped with a roller with wire pile, which is used to clean a painted floor or parquet from a durable paint layer.
Thanks to its design features, the curb scraper will allow you to clean wooden floors in hard to reach places. The device cleans areas adjacent to the wall, as well as corners and joints in the room.
You may need a screwdriver as a tool for the job. It is used to deepen the heads of self-tapping screws deep into the surface of the boards. This must be done to avoid damaging the disks of the scraper.
It is not necessary to purchase all of the listed tools, but a complete set will significantly speed up the repair process. An alternative to buying is renting necessary equipment. At a minimum, you can get by with a disk machine and a device for scraping borders.
Modern devices make it possible to carry out sanding without dust, but after work, debris may still remain, so cleaning is an integral stage of the procedures.
Old floor scraping technology
They begin scraping the old wooden floor by preparing the room, completely emptying it of furniture.
It is better to protect paintings and shelves on the walls from dust using film. Interior doors removed from the hinges, the doorway must be covered with film so that dust does not penetrate into other rooms. On the contrary, it is better to open windows wide before starting work. It is necessary to purchase headphones as the device produces a lot of noise. A respirator is used to protect the respiratory system. The process of sanding wooden floors consists of four stages.
The first stage is preparation of the coating. It is necessary to eliminate defects by replacing damaged parts of floor boards or parquet strips. The gaps between the boards are filled with sawdust. Residues of varnish are removed by treating them with a solvent followed by using a scraper. The floor prepared for sanding must be washed and dried for a couple of days.
After this, you can sand the wooden floor. The sanding procedure begins with the use of coarse-grained sanding sheets. They will allow you to remove remnants of the paintwork, remove unevenness and protruding defects. After turning on the machine, you need to carefully place it on the floor and move across the room, trying to keep the device level. Moving straight from wall to wall, you need to treat the entire surface of the room.
Wood with curling (winding arrangement of fibers) is less susceptible to machining. For sanding twisted boards, medium-grain sanding sheets are used. You need to move around the room diagonally, this will provide more smooth surface. After pre-processing the twisted boards, you need to change the sanding sheet to a fine-grained one and repeat the processing of the entire area with its help.
Sanding the floorboards near the walls is the final stage of the procedure. To do this, they usually use a special curb apparatus, with which they scrape the areas of the floor adjacent to the wall. The procedure begins with medium-grained discs, and then the surface is additionally treated with a fine-grained disc.
After completing the work, it is necessary to remove all scraping products by vacuuming and wiping the floor. Next, you can begin applying the varnish coating to the surface of the parquet.
Floor treatment after sanding
After removing the top layer of the floor covering, you must immediately prepare the wooden floor for applying varnish. First, the gaps between the boards are puttied. The putty composition must first be prepared according to the instructions. The paste is applied to all visible holes by hand until they are completely filled. This prevents the subsequent penetration of moisture and dust between the parquet elements. The composition needs time to dry and settle. If necessary, repeat the procedure, leveling the putty layer in areas of subsidence.
Repeated sanding of the seams where the putty was applied is carried out using fine-grained discs to remove protruding excess. After it, you also need to sweep up the dust or vacuum the room.
The first layer of varnish is applied to give the wood strength and durability. The first layer dries within two days. After this, it is necessary to carry out light sanding again for better adhesion and cleaning of the surface.
The last stage of work is applying a second layer of varnish, which will provide a shiny texture to the wood and protect it from premature wear.
Note! It is not recommended to use water-soluble varnishes on softwood floors, as they are highly absorbent.
For expensive, rare species wooden parquet Apply up to five layers of varnish. Updated this way flooring will serve its owners for at least another five years. If the floor is pine, it is advisable to distribute the furniture evenly over its surface to avoid overload.
Important Notes
To ensure a high-quality scraping result, you should adhere to the following recommendations. The sanding machine must move continuously and very smoothly along the grain of the wood.
The direction depends on the pattern and method of laying the dies or boards:
- laying herringbone parquet is scraped at an angle of 45 degrees;
- with a rectangular pattern, scraping is carried out at a right angle;
- decorative parquet should be scraped in circles or in a spiral, from the wall to the center of the room.
The final finishing is carried out with a surface grinder along and across the parquet flooring.
In general, sanding should be carried out by specialists, since it will be problematic for a beginner to level the floor over the entire area and evenly apply paintwork the first time. However, if the budget does not allow attracting specialists finishing works, then it is quite possible to repair wooden floors yourself.
Wood always looks beautiful, noble and warm. However, it quickly becomes unusable, since it is still soft. natural material. However, even aged wood floors can be renovated and restored to their former glory. This is done using scraping. After this procedure, the floors will look completely new.
It is worth remembering that scraping will take quite a lot of time even with a relatively small area to be processed. So in any case, a special grinding machine will come in handy.
This technique can be angular for processing joints and corners, and drum for processing the entire main surface area. It is not necessary to buy this equipment, since it is quite expensive; you can rent it.
No material can compare with the warmth of wood. It is incredibly beautiful, stylish and very cozy. However, such material also causes a lot of trouble. The tree is susceptible to rotting, and various bugs try to damage it.
Therefore, you should constantly take care of wooden coverings. Wooden floors are especially susceptible to abrasion and quickly lose their beautiful appearance, since they bear the main load. Fortunately, you can return an old tree to its chic appearance, and maybe even improve its previous condition.
To carry out scraping yourself you will need the following tools:
- A special wire sponge to remove the old coating layer,
- grinding machine,
- abrasive belt of different grain sizes,
- scraping machine for processing corners,
- alcohol to remove varnish,
- varnish for final floor finishing.
Checking the floor before sanding
Depending on the floor pattern, the machine operates differently. If the laying was carried out in a deck manner, then this should be done diagonally, if laid out in a herringbone pattern, then along the pattern. Before scraping the floor with your own hands, you should consider using the services of professionals.
They have professional grinding machines in their arsenal and at the same time have experience in this field.
The time has come to process the corners and edges of the room. For this purpose, an angular scraping machine is used. The whole technology is similar to the previous one. First, sanding is done with coarse-grain sandpaper, then with medium-grain sandpaper and finally with fine-grain sandpaper.
Final stage
After the entire surface has been treated, all debris should be removed and everything thoroughly cleaned with a vacuum cleaner. Wait 24 hours for the remaining dust to settle again and vacuum again. First, you should wipe all the boards with white spirit.
Now you can start coating. He is considered the best material to protect the floor, especially on water based, as it forms a film resistant to various physical activity. In addition, the first layer dries within half an hour. However, you must wait several hours before applying the next layer.
Varnish helps protect treated boards from external influences, more durable. Apply varnish in several layers to ensure a more durable coating. You can use a transparent type of varnish or colored varnish to give the floor a more saturated color. color shade natural wood.
You can also use stain, which should be applied immediately after sanding. The stain should be treated with each board separately using a soft cloth.
Apply varnish to the entire surface of the floor using a brush. To begin with, the application goes across the grain of the wood, then along it. When working, make sure that no traces are left from the brush. When the first layer of varnish has dried, you need to clean the floor with sandpaper and a vacuum cleaner. After this, you need to cover the wooden floor with two more layers of varnish.
Always highly valued. And not only thanks to the beautiful appearance. Just think about the aroma of freshly processed wood, which reminds you of warmth and comfort. However, such floors are very capricious and require constant care and careful maintenance. This is not only periodic cleaning, but also the return of the original appearance.
Sanding a wooden floor is a tedious, time-consuming and very responsible task.
It is worth remembering that when working with wood, achieving perfect smoothness is simply unrealistic, especially when working with coniferous species. The main thing is that there are no large gaps, the floor should be comfortable and pleasant for walking on barefoot. This is the normal result of sanding a wooden floor.
Let's start with the fact that only wooden floor coverings, which include parquet and batten. Despite the fact that some lovers of perfect floors sometimes try to scrape laminated parquet, they still end up with only a damaged floor. Wooden floors that were previously covered with mastic or varnish, which refers to parquet, or painted with paint, are recycled - this is about boardwalks. Such work is done in order to remove upper layer wood and expose the pure, pristine one, which was not touched by the interference of too homely owners. You only need to remove the top layer, just a little, so as not to spoil the flooring material.
To be honest, you first need to decide what you will do with it. The most faithful and quick way scraping consists of using a special scraping machine. If you often do such work, then it is better to buy such a machine and not give it to anyone, since someone no less diligent than you can easily dull or break the sanding knives.
Such a unit is quite expensive, but the time savings are worth the money. When scraping using a machine, you do not have to get rid of family members and pets during work. Household members will somehow survive the noise of the car, and pets will have time to hide. Apart from noise, the mechanism does not particularly bother others; there is not even much dust from it.
Speaking of dust, which will occur with any scraping method. It will not be just dust, but dirt mixed with mastics and varnish. You will have to breathe this mixture until the work comes to an end, which is extremely undesirable. Be sure to stock up on a respirator and safety glasses, because dust will fly not only into your mouth and nose, but also into your eyes.
Another sanding method is quieter, but also more labor-intensive: sandpaper. You can pick it up and rub the floor with your hands, or you can tie it to the sole of your shoe and rub it with your feet. In any case, both of them get tired quite quickly, so you will have to constantly change your “tools of labor.” When using this method There will be less not only noise, but also dust. The looping time can last indefinitely, which depends on your strength and desire to finish everything quickly and go lie down on the couch.
Another noisy and dusty option in solving the problem of how to quickly cycle the floor. Take a grinder in your hands, apply or glue sandpaper to the disk and clean the floor with sandpaper. It works quite quickly, but an uncomfortable position can provoke an increase in pressure and an attack of radiculitis. Be careful when using this scraping option.
Now again a quiet but slow way to clean a dirty floor surface. Take something like a scraper, knife, chisel and gradually clean, centimeter by centimeter, the entire surface of the floor. It is good to do such work on vacation, so as not to gain weight during the vacation, but workplace return thinner, rejuvenated and completely satisfied with a successful vacation.
If suddenly, for some reason, you are not satisfied with these four scraping options, help will come fifth way. You call a team of craftsmen, give them a task, set deadlines, invest a certain amount of money, and you pack your bags and go on vacation with your family. IN in this case you will not be bothered by dust or noise, since you will decide not the question of how best to make repairs, but where to get money for a return ticket. Because, having received a telegram from the scraping place about the shortage Money for the needs of scrapers, you had to transfer all the cash to your hometown.
But now all the troubles are behind you, and in front of you is an almost new floor, shining with cleanliness. But it’s too early to let household members into the apartment, because the floor needs to be rubbed with mastic or varnished again, and then, after some time, it needs to be sanded again.
Wooden floors have remained popular and in demand for decades. Despite the large number of modern facing materials, it continues to be in demand. This covering provides comfort, is beautiful and durable. However, it also requires careful care. For example, from time to time a tree will need sanding. You can do it yourself.
Eliminating small defects on the surface of the floor covering, cleaning it from dirt and dust, removing old paint layers - this is sanding. How often you will carry out this procedure depends on the degree of wear of the floor, as well as on the thoroughness of care and operating conditions of the wood.
If you're going to do big renovation, then floor treatment must be present. The fact is that the interior, which combines new facing material and old, darkened and cracked wood will look, to put it mildly, ugly.
What tools will you need for the job?
Before sanding the floor, you need to prepare necessary materials and devices. You will need:
- Mineral alcohol;
- Polyethylene film;
- Brush with metal bristles;
- Construction or powerful household vacuum cleaner;
- Surface grinder;
- A device for processing skirting boards or a manual scraper;
- Sandpaper with different sizes grains: from 40 to 120;
- Special scissors;
- Screwdriver or hammer.
In addition, you will need to select a putty designed specifically for wooden floors. You also need varnish and a tool for applying it (roller or brush).
What should be the direction of scraping?
This question is very important because wood coverings are not uniform. For example, if you have parquet and it is laid in a herringbone pattern, then rough processing is done at an angle of 45 degrees, and finishing is done lengthwise and crosswise. Each of these manipulations must be performed 2 times.
If the parquet is figured, then it must be sanded in 2 directions, perpendicular to each other. Decorative coating processed with spiral or circular movements. Moreover, only a surface grinding tool is used.
Advice! To prevent holes from appearing on the floor, you should not stay in one place for a long time.
Expensive types of coating are best sanded by hand. The movements should be circular. Both sandpaper and a scraper can be used for this - a tool with a slightly curved blade attached to the end.
Features in preparation for work
Before scraping can be done, you need to prepare. First, put on protective clothing, gloves, goggles and a respirator, as there will be a lot of dust in the room. The sanding device makes a lot of noise, so headphones or earplugs are also a good idea.
- The room must be completely cleared of furniture and other items. It is advisable to remove the chandelier too. If it is not possible to remove the furniture, then it should be covered with a thick film, and so that there are no gaps.
- The door must be closed. Seal the cracks masking tape to prevent dust from leaking into other rooms. In some cases the door has to be removed. Then the opening is covered with film.
- Now you need to examine the floor and assess its general condition. The coating must be smooth and durable, not subject to warping.
- Carefully inspect the joists and roughing; if they are damaged, they should be repaired or replaced. Creaking floorboards also need to be eliminated.
- If the floor was covered with mastic, then this layer must be removed. Use a washcloth and mineral alcohol (white spirit) for this.
- Nails or screws sticking out of the boards must be recessed so that they do not interfere with the sanding machine.
- All cracks and spaces between the floorboards should be filled with scraps coated with glue. Next, the protruding parts are cut off with a plane. Now putty problem areas. It is advisable to level the surface using sandpaper. After puttying, the floor dries for at least 2 days.
Features of the procedure
Cycling is not an easy process, so it should be taken seriously. The work consists of several stages:
- First, you need to thread a sheet of coarse sandpaper into the device. Check if it is securely fastened. You should not turn on the device suddenly. If you have never worked with it, tilt it to one side, turn it on and slowly lower it to the working position. Otherwise, out of habit, the unit may be torn out of your hands. Do not let go of the machine while working.
- Processing should begin from the corner opposite the door. Leave the windows open, as there will be a lot of dust. The grinding direction is diagonal.
- It is made so that each subsequent strip overlaps slightly with the previous one. Each track should be processed 2-3 times, depending on the type of material. Please note that you need to periodically clean the sandpaper and dust container. The abrasive material should be changed as it wears off.
- Each subsequent approach must be perpendicular to the previous one. At the same time, at all stages the sandpaper grain size is reduced by 1 number. The last approach is done with the finest sandpaper in a direction parallel to the floorboards.
- The last step is to scrape the wooden floor near the walls. This procedure is complex, so a regular surface sander will not work. Here you need a special machine for processing borders. The abrasive material should be medium-grained.
After completing the work, the floor surface should be wiped with a dry cloth. After this, the coating, walls and ceiling should be vacuumed thoroughly. Next, you can start finishing wooden floor. Varnish is usually used for this.
As you can see, scraping a wooden floor with your own hands is done quite quickly, although it is associated with some difficulties. However, if you are not confident in your abilities, then it is better to entrust this matter to professionals.
Scraping is leveling using scraping. This action is performed either manually or using a special machine called a scraper. The name comes from hand tools, which used to be used to level floors - “scrape”. However, even now you can meet a person who would decide to do this type of repair manually.
Sanding differs from sanding in that rougher processing is carried out. wooden covering than when grinding. A fairly large top layer of material is cut off from the floor surface, and the minimum is no more than half a millimeter.
Nowadays, truly cycle machines can be called, perhaps, drum machines, with the help of which it is good and old varnish coating. They are not very suitable for finer work. For other types of work, disc grinders are used.
However, the name firmly attached to such work is “scraping”.
We recommend checking out the company “Our – Parquet” Private master” which performs parquet scraping inexpensively and efficiently in Moscow and Moscow Region without dust at reasonable prices per m2.
1.2 Preparing the room for work
To do this you need to do a few simple steps:
1.3 Inspect the floor surface
Before we do the actual scraping, let's inspect our floors.
2. Let's start scraping
A scraper (grinding) machine is expensive, so it’s better to rent one; you must first read the instructions and also get advice from professionals. The best option- carry out everything yourself preparatory work, and entrust the scraping itself to professionals - and your nerves will be in order, and much less time will be spent.
If you decide to do everything yourself, then...
2.1 Let's start looping
- Start scraping by taking into the work room - grinding machine, several types of sandpaper (coarse, medium and fine-grained), carefully plug all the cracks in the door leading to the living part of the apartment. Cover your ears with earplugs, put on glasses over your eyes, and a respirator over your nose and mouth. It is also necessary to ensure an influx fresh air. However, if the machine has a dust collector, the only equipment you will need is earplugs; such machines have not yet learned to operate quietly.
Video on how to scrape a floor:
2.2. We putty cracks and other imperfections after the car
The scraping itself is almost complete. We remove all dust from the floor, ceiling and walls using a vacuum cleaner. We examine the resulting surface. It is likely that some defects still remain, for example, small gaps. We cover them with a special water-based putty and use a gun. Then remove the excess solution rubber spatula, let it dry. We do the same with the holes from the nail heads. After the putty has dried, you may need to go through the sanding machine again with fine-grained sandpaper.
Advice. If you want to get a light varnished floor, cover it with a thin, almost invisible layer of putty. After drying, this floor will appear lighter. After applying the varnish, it will not darken, and the structure of the wood will be clearly visible.
If you carry out the final scraping with zero, give the room a “rest” - let all the dust that is in the air settle. Next you need to carefully wet cleaning, removing dust from all surfaces and the floor. Now you can get started.
We looked at a common option for scraping a wooden floor. It is used on both old and new wood flooring.
3. Manual scraping of old parquet
Now let's look at one of the popular options - how to sand a floor covered with old, well-worn parquet. The option is valuable because these works, even if performed by a professional using professional equipment, will always cost less than. In addition, the old coating is very reliable, although time could not but affect it - small chips and cracks, places where the varnish has completely worn off. Let's try to bring all this back to its original form.
It is worth noting that now rarely does anyone ask the question of how to manually cycle floors. This is dictated by the fact that the machine method of performing such work is noticeably easier, faster and of better quality.
4. Machines for scraping and grinding floors (scraping equipment). Consumables
Below we will talk about parquet sanding machines. Because by sanding floors in most cases we mean sanding parquet, and not ordinary plank flooring. Although such machines can be used on it.
Why grinding and not scraping? Because it correct name machines of this type. But we call them looping ones in the old fashioned way, often recalling L. Gaidai’s film “Obsession.”
4.1 Parquet sanding machines are:
Almost all modern machines for such work are equipped with dust collectors similar to vacuum cleaners. Therefore, there is much less dust during work, although you still cannot do without it.
Thus, when thinking about how to cycle floors, you need to think about one more question - how will you do it, manually or using technology. And if using technology, then which car should be preferred when renting. The purchase should be abandoned immediately. This technique is not cheap, but you only use it once, maximum twice, in your life.
4.2 Consumables
- Putty;
- Parquet varnish or paint (for regular floors);
- Stationery knife;
- or brush, rubber spatula
5. When you can and when you can’t cycle
When thinking about restoring parquet flooring and how to properly sand a floor, you need to know that not every surface can be renewed using sanding. To do this you need to know the thickness flooring material. If parquet board has a thickness of 0.8 cm, it can be processed manually no more three times, if 1.5 cm, then no more than 5. If the thickness of the boards is less than 0.8 cm, such parquet cannot be scraped. The same goes for regular wooden floors.
In a word, the more high-quality coating was started at the beginning, so large quantity It will withstand treatments.
In conclusion, I would like to say that it is necessary to take care of your floor coverings. You should not walk on varnished parquet in stiletto heels, wash it with water, or move furniture on it. Use soft woven slippers at home by simply wiping the floor damp cloth, and make special gaskets under the furniture legs. Cover the floor regularly protective equipment to extend the life of the varnish coating. Only in this case will you be able to enjoy the result of your labor for a long time, which is called floor scraping.
