Thank you both for the pattern. I started it last night and did 6 panels, but this morning thought that was going to be a bit heavy when I got done, so this morning I ripped out all those stitches and put on enough for 2 panels at a time. That is going to be very nice and I really like the pattern. I am doing it with lots of colors, so that should be nice. So thanks........Mystic

Right out of the gate, Greg mills commented that the man sanding may have been used to sanding oaks and maples instead of softer woods. Australian cypress is harder that oak and maple, not softer. It can be fixed, as someone said, it's a resand, not another coat. icutmyfinger showed pics of them sanding. They said they used hummels but they are clearly Galaxy. This terrible sand job was caused by a few things. Bad grit choice that didn't sand evenly. Even though they first cut on an angle , the machine rode the knots and didn't cut them. ( let's put on a used belt, we can save money! ) After the angle they may have run other cuts at an angle, but I suspect this was a 36,80 job. The last cut ran straight and the rear wheel rode the knots and contributed to the waves. Also the machine is probably not well maintained or adjusted so a bad rear wheel, bad drum and incorrect pressure on the drum only exacerbated the problem. A hardplate, trio or similar planetary may have helped but these machines won't fix bad sanding. This is just plain bad sanding. Glennfc made a good point about 'why resand because they wanted a satin finish'. My guess: I'll bet that the owner of Reliable saw the bad sanding and used that as his excuse to resand and fix it, which was good. His second set of guys, who were also $1 a foot subs, did an equally terrible job, probably worse, since they obviously also had zero understanding of abrasives, grit sequence or best sanding practices. Jfcwood is correct on this: it's 100% Reliables fault and it's their responsibility to redo it. I'm sure he's spent a boatload on traffic, but I'll bet he didn't pay either of the subs for the lousy job. So he got his deposit, bought finish, didn't pay the subs and he still made money. Then he walked away. Jfcwood is way off on this: only 1 in 3 will notice. ?? This is a high end home, obviously, in Long Island with huge amounts of light coming through huge windows. His friends and company are used to looking at quality. This floor job is complete garbage and needs to be redone Here's the only exception: If he chose his floor company based on lowest price, then he deserves this. If he talked Reliable down in price, he deserves this whole mess. i hope icutmyfinger got a remedy for this, as it's a black eye on the whole industry. If he didn't and wants to I have 3 friends on Long Island that aren't afraid of "exotic wood" and have extensive experience with best sanding practices and this is my opinion based on 32 years of sanding floors, making mistakes, fixing the mistakes and learning from my mistakes. My math may be suspect, however I was referring only to the remedies suggested, and the causes. Id sill be interested in knowing how this turned out if you guys are in Phoenix, stop me and say hello. I'll be teaching in TechZone

Possibly Verbesina virginica, but it's difficult to see stem details, (wings).

No, ripples, waves and chatters are not acceptable according to NWFA sanding standards. The surface should look as flat as possible. I doubt the contractor can fix it, since it was done the first time around. You can negotiate your final payment. Floor looks rough also. Surface should not look distorted.