(Another) Reclaimed flooring thread!

OCTAF1SH

Hi guys!

New(ish) to the forum (I had a previous sign on some years ago, but can't remember it!) so I'll firstly say hi to all!

Yes, I know, ANOTHER reclaimed flooring thread, but I can't find anything covering my issue in previous posts.

Now, there may be no way to do this, besides trying the obvious, but we have laid reclaimed pine flooring in our hallway, since previous owners of our 1890 house had replace sections of flooring with anything they could find! Obviously the flooring is well worn and dinged quite a bit, and some of the boards are thicker than others from previous sanding. We're weighing up the cost/time/quality benefits (or otherwise) of sanding/finishing the floor ourselves, I have done some sanding a few years ago, but didn't see the job to completion, as it was my brother's house, and he finished the work while I was at college.

The flooring has these dents, dings and scars, which I have become very fond of, and I was wondering if anyone had any tips about sanding a floor while keeping some of these imperfections? would it be a good idea to skip the first couple of courser grade papers on the sander, or could this lead to problems? Another thingI thought of was to forego the use of a drum sander, and opt for a handheld sander for more control (the hall is only 9m2) but even though it's a small room, it will take forever i should think!

thanks for any ideas guys........

tony6403

If you sand the floor by whatever means you will lose all or some of the character of the proud boards - there is no escaping this.
If you are prepared to lift the thicker boards , which could be somewhat destructive , it would be possible to remove the excess from the underside, ideally with a planer/thicknesser ( You would need to measure the thin boards with a vernier caliper to get a precise dimension ). This may cause the tongues and grooves to misalign with the adjoining floor boards. The same would apply if you tried to shim the thinner boards. I would not recommend removing the tongues to get around this problem.