Difference in sand or screen?

10 years ago

Hello - we are approaching the finishing stage of our hardwood install and have a question about the process. We are using colored Pallmann's Magic Oil, and the directions say "do not sand finer than a 120 screen."

What is the difference between sanding and screening? We had used a square edge buff sander (not drum sander) rented from the Home Depot to sand the floor - it is raw wood, never finished, and we used 60, 80, 120 grits. Do we need to also use a screen on the rotary polisher (we will also rent this from the Home Depot) before we polish the Pallmann's with red and white pad into the wood? And if we want the wood to take up a deep coloration from the colored oil, do we want to back off to only an 80 or 100 grit before polishing the oil so the pores of the wood are more open?

Any advice would be appreciated. Oh, we also are doing this to our stair treads, where the polisher or square buff sander will not fit. How do you polish the oil into a tread? We sanded them with a vibrating hand sander. Can I hand oil and hand polish the treads well enough to be consistent?

Here is a link that might be useful: Pallmann directions

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Comments (4)

gregmills_gw
10 years ago
If youre just using the square vibe then you dont need to screen. Screening is used for final sanding to blend the edges with the middle if using a drum sander.

I dont use oil for my finishes so im not the guy to be asking about taking color deeper in tone. If you were staining and using urethne then i was suggest water popping. But with rub in oil i dont think it would apply.
MiaOKC
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks, Greg, I was thinking it might be overkill to screen after using the vibrating sander but wasn't sure. I've emailed the manufacturer to find out about the application on stair treads and how to get the wood to take the color deeply. I'm not confident I would be able to get a consistent water pop (it would be my first time), although I think water popping is often done with the similar Rubio hardwax oil finish. Will post back when I hear an answer so that we will all know for the future
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MiaOKC
Original Author
10 years ago
A related question - how much traffic can a floor stand between the sanding and the application of the finish? I ask because we sanded 70% of our job two weeks ago, and the finish was delayed and didn't arrive to the site. So, we decided to change our original plan (which was to lay hardwood and finish it upstairs in two phases 70%/30% for various reasons, mostly due to large, hard to move furniture) to lay and finish the entire upstairs at once so that we can be wrapped up and back to some semblance of normalcy in time for Christmas. We will end up moving out some more furniture, and have been living on the currently sanded floor, walking through it, etc, for a few weeks before we get to finish it this time.

I think I will need to do a quick touch up sanding on the entire floor with my 120 grit (in addition to doing my sanding sequence of 60, 80, 120 on the final 30% of newly installed wood we are working on right now) to bring back the uniformity of the wood just before applying the finish. Then we will shop vac (which did leave some marks on the sanded floor when we did it prior to the day we thought we'd be applying our finish. It gets sucked down to the wood really hard occasionally, and I wondered if that would affect the finish), then tack it with an old t-shirt misted with paint thinner or mineral spirits. Sound OK?
gregmills_gw
10 years ago
Whenever i get to the point of my sanding is complete i never wait to lay finish down.

Now when im not able to lay finish right after i do my final sand i will hold off with the screening until i know that i can for sure lay finish right after.

Of course if you dont mind doing spot repairs if anything does pop up then go ahead and wait for however you want.

Time to me = money so spending one hour fixing areas because i waited after my final sand is too costly.