How to Sand an Unfinished Wood Floor after Fitting

When fitting unfinished wood flooring you’ll need to sand the floor post fit to clean the boards back and remove any high spots between boards to a smooth even join. This video shows us using an orbital buffing machine with a sander attachment to accomplish this. Depending on the amount of height deviation between the joints you may need to use coarser sanding paper – just be careful of going too rough as you can quickly remove excessive amounts with low grade sandpaper.

When sanding always work your way up the grit grades i.e. 80g to start, 100g to even and 120g to finish. These grades will usually be sufficient to achieve the required results. You can always attempt to try with 100g first and see if it will be sufficient and make the judgement call from there. Always finish on 120g as this is generally the optimal grit for applying oils.

Tip: If you have an antiqued/handscraped wood floor be very careful sand sanding as you may inadvertently sand the handscraped effect off. In this situation if an all-over sand is required just use 120g sand paper and quickly sweep the sander over the floor to minimise effect whilst still cleaning any adhesive spots etc… Do not use a belt sander.