Did you find out?

Not really. That's starting to get into art restoration techniques. The low cost of refinishing already makes this type of work not economically viable, so there's basically no effort in the industry to cater to it. Best you could try is scuffing up the new finish with some steel wool or something to try to dull it to match the surrounding, but I've never managed to get that to work well.

It will Matte down and blend in over time

Do not use steel wool "or something" to "scuff up" your floor finish. I'm confused why the poster thinks the problem is that the rest of your finish is scuffed. I assume you want the stain and the shininess to match. That's the problem with taking this approach. You will have to have a lot of experience to properly match it, if you don't still have more of it on hand. It's quite a lot of effort for a result that arguably will be no better, and perhaps far more noticeable than a proper wood filler spot treatment. I'm suspicious that several steps of this restoration didn't go as planned so it snowballed into sanding, scraping, restaining and refinishing entire boards. You can find many, many videos that take a simpler approach with phenomenal results.

16, 36, 50, 100 and 3 coats. But thanks, kid.

Exactly!!! No effort was made to get out the majority of dark areas. It’s crazy to attempt 100%, but this guy left 80% of the dark areas. For the record, I just refinish 2,000 sf of Fir from 1795. The project took 4 times longer than a regular refinish job because I was hell bent on making the final product look it’s best. Did I have to sand more than I normally would? Yes! Did I have to special order 16 grit drum paper because the Fir was surprisingly hard and almost impenetrable? Yes! Did I have to remove an extra 10-15% of surface area in order to achieve 90-95% CLEAR surface area? Also YES! At the end of the day, these floors have never had a full refinish over their 250 year life. Also bear in mind, most old floors are a full 1” thick (sometimes more than 1”) which already makes them 1/4” thicker than brand new solid wood flooring sold in stores. Simply put - these floors can “afford” to take an extra/aggressive refinishing. I agree you shouldn’t perform an aggressive refinishing very often. If done correctly (emphasis on correctly), a full refinish will technically last indefinitely, and you will only need to do a superficial screening every 10 to 15 years, which doesn’t remove much if any wood material. People half ass refinish jobs, which is why homeowners find themselves doing multiple aggressive refinishes over a relatively short period of time. If anyone is interested in my most recent project, I’d be happy to share before and after photos. The floors went from being dark brown, badly damaged, weathered, and dirty, to looking like they were freshly milled (with plenty of character intact!) Simply put: too many professionals get lazy when refinishing Fir, and they make silly comments like “it’s just part of the character”. 🤦🏻‍♂️

@@robertbirdsell5838 people aren’t being malicious. People who know better will call out this refinish project as half-assed. It’s not personal. Just the truth. Never use water based finish, let alone Bona. Water based finish will look like hell in a few years, and it won’t hold up. It’s the reason so many floors need frequent refinishing. Also, most Bona products are crap. I use Poloplaz premiero oil urethane on 90% of projects. I also know the difference between “character” and areas that aren’t complete. Too many homeowners are uninformed, so it’s easy to tell them “this is the best we can do…it’s the nature of the wood”. I hear contractors say the SAME thing about Maple, Oak, and Pine 😂 Translation: I didn’t want to go the extra mile to make this floor look it’s best. Sure, you never want to compromise the floor by over sanding for one or two imperfections. But let’s be honest, most older floors are AT LEAST 1” thick, which means you have a lot of wiggle room. The Fir floors in my recent project ranged from 1.25” thick (in the 1800 addition) to 3.5” thick in the original part of the house built in 1765. You bet I went to town on the 3.5” thick boards - had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Anything less would’ve been a sin, and to be honest, it would’ve been a dishonor to the original craftsmen and a figurative stain on the beauty of the floor itself. Take my comment however you want. I just want to see homeowners and professionals alike DO BETTER

@@shawnburke7974 You must be fun at wood floor finishers parties.

Test kit was negative.

Aquabar B

I don't think you understand the nature of fir flooring of this age. The discoloration is deep enough in the wood that further sanding would compromise the structure of the boards. At this point it is more of a patina than a defect.

I’ve done a couple of these fir floors and it is hilarious when people say you should’ve done this you should’ve done that! Vg fir Had its place back in the early 1900s ain abundance as a Cheap option as old growth was everywhere in our forests especially in the PNW! Wood is a living thing and I Challenge anybody to try to live 100 years without liver spots! Case closed

Exactly. No effort was made to get out the majority of dark areas. It’s crazy to attempt 100%, but this guy left 80% of the dark areas. For the record, I just refinish 2,000 sf of Fir from 1795. The project took 4 times longer than a regular refinish job because I was hell bent on making the final product look it’s best. Did I have to sand more than I normally would? Yes! Did I have to special order 16 grit drum paper because the Fir was surprisingly hard and almost impenetrable? Yes! Did I have to remove an extra 10-15% of surface area in order to achieve 90-95% CLEAR surface area? Also YES! At the end of the day, these floors have never had a full refinish over their 250 year life. Also bear in mind, most old floors are a full 1” thick (sometimes more than 1”) which already makes them 1/4” thicker than brand new solid wood flooring sold in stores. Simply put - these floors can “afford” to take an extra/aggressive refinishing. I agree you shouldn’t perform an aggressive refinishing very often. If done correctly (emphasis on correctly), a full refinish will technically last indefinitely, and you will only need to do a superficial screening every 10 to 15 years, which doesn’t remove much if any wood material. People half ass refinish jobs, which is why homeowners find themselves doing multiple aggressive refinishes over a relatively short period of time. If anyone is interested in my most recent project, I’d be happy to share before and after photos. The floors went from being dark brown, badly damaged, weathered, and dirty, to looking like they were freshly milled (with plenty of character intact!) Simply put: too many professionals get lazy when refinishing Fir, and they make silly comments like “it’s just part of the character”. 🤦🏻‍♂️

You should change your username.

@@shawnburke7974you seem upset but good for you I guess

It's just called a scraper. Sometimes they're sold as paint scrapers.

Robert Birdsell Thank you!!

Got them out just fine with 36.

The angle that he cut it at wasn’t too aggressive. No problem removing those lines. Anything finer than 24 on that floor would be a waste of time

In my experience buffing finish from repairs doesn't work too well to blend it in. Usually the surrounding finish is more worn and dull, so buffing just makes the repair stand out more.

I don't know how much work the vapor barrier did, I was just worried about over steaming the rest of the floor, don't really know what else would work, or if it was necessary.

I'm not sure, but I think it has to do with furniture around the perimeter of the room. The century of foot traffic would have all been in the space in the center, the areas under furniture wouldn't get much wear.

@@robertbirdsell5838 That makes sense. I was wondering whether fir is photosensitive. Back in the day carpets could be much larger than area-rugs but not wall to wall. I don't know how deep UV lightening goes. Or maybe certain carpet or underlay dyes could stain.

@@WeTubule Our Seattle 1918 fir floor had this perimeter effect from the perimeter being finished but the area under the large rug you describe being unfinished. Before starting, the finished area was darker and unfinished area lighter but it reversed after sanding off the finish since the finish had protected the wood over time. I ended up with a more consistent color/appearance by continuing to sand off more to get deeper in the center areas to lighten it up.

... and was sorry I used filler in the joints since it has gradually fallen out in chunks, especially the larger joints. I did it maybe 25 years ago, so maybe the products are better now, but I suspect the combination of larger joints from decades of drying and the expansion/contraction of the wood in our moist winter and dry summer climate would do it regardless.

@@c.a.g.3130 LOL another brilliant know-it-all comment. Wood filler would stand out for dents of the size shown in this video unless you use advanced methods. If you're filling a dent that isn't in an area with a lot of "grain" or color variation, it will work perfectly. There are dozens of kinds of wood filler and there methods to make it look grainy. This CAG fella who thinks he is pro is very definitely not

I troweled the filler on after the 50 pass. It can be sanded about an hour afterward in ideal conditions, but I prefer to leave it overnight when I can, especially on a floor like this with larger gaps. It also requires some additional spot filling because it sinks into the larger gaps. The filler is really kind of optional on a floor like this though. The boards flex a lot and will work it out of the gaps over time, but the client wanted it in there. I will dry tack some floors, but if the wood is old and splintery, it tends to catch the mop and do more harm than good. I have a very good vacuum, and abrade and wet tack before the final coat, so they come out nice and smooth at the end. Woodwise and Bona also make trowelable filler, but they are thinner and I usually have to fill twice with them in addition to spot filling. You can also use wood doe (which mixes with fine dust from the wood itself to match color) but it is basically thin airplane glue and very noxious. I believe I used the red oak colored filler. The fir will turn darker over time and the filler won't, but it matches well enough at the beginning, which the client wanted since it's a rental. Total time for what was shown is probably about 6 hours, but split across a couple days.

:)

My exact thinking. lol

C. A. G. Is this literally the only way to fix a chip? I had a chip in my hardwood floor. Filled it with wood filler, stained it, then used brown and black crayons to get it really similar to the floor, and added polyurethane. It’s not perfect like in this video, but you would never notice it unless I pointed to it or if you were looking really closely.

C. A. G. I’m good, thanks. Not sure why you’re being an asshole.

@@c.a.g.3130 WTAF are you talking about. Wood filler isn't peanut butter. It's made for this. There literally dozens of choices of wood filler for this job, and you can easily find a color matched product. You can find plenty of videos on how to do hard wood spot repair like wjaiv is asking about, and they are actually videos by professionals unlike this one. No offense to the poster of this video, but they clearly are not - but they did an impressive job and used an interesting method. They just thought this was the best approach for their specific dents.

I went 16/50/100 on the machine and 12/50/100 on the edger, then a 100 grit screen on the buffer at the end. The paste is Duraseal's trowel wood filler, it helps fill in some of the splintered out grain in the wood and the gaps between boards. I put 3 coats of Bona waterbase finish on it at the end. I don't know how much the finish is gluing it together, I think the filler is doing more of that work, then the water base layers are sitting on top to sort of hold it in. You could try picking stuff up from local distributors with cash, but they tend to not want to sell to non-contractors. You can also buy the stuff online (I think Bona finishes are even on Amazon), but it's a bit more expensive there.

Robert Birdsell that’s great info! Do you think it’s too late to add the duraseal? If I’ve gone to 80 grit with the drum sander? Would you add this stuff and go over it with another 80 or 100 on a square buff? I rented the edger and drum, but own a square buff. Any distributors in the north end you’d recommend? Thanks so much!

@@billymcfun If you trowel filler on, you'll want to hit it with the drum sander again. The filler will clog up the square buff sandpaper pretty fast. You could run a fast 100 pass with the drum, then square buff with 100 after that.

@@robertbirdsell5838 do you not get track marks with the hummel? Didn't see you nail down any nails.. usually on fir the metal mars up the sand paper and leaves track lines on the fir even on the final paper.

This is so fun to see!! I stumbled upon this video doing some research on re-finishing old flooring, we are restoring a house in North Everett and are knee deep in this process.

Depends on the finish. This was Swedish, so it's like a thin layer of plastic, the water can't really permeate it.

Yes. You can find videos of how to do this with wood filler. You can get wood filler that takes stain just like wood. It really depends on what kind of wood floor you have, and what kind of dents you have. My wood floor has the occasional knot or irregularity. Smaller dents that have a "natural" looking shape compared to the wood grain are *easy* to fix with wood filler or to spot fix in general. But if you have larger, jagged/irregular shaped dents, it's a much bigger challenge

@@robertbirdsell5838 What if it's oil?

Hey, I resent both the implication that I'll pound in a fresh dent and the "little" part.

If you don't you won't be able to get a uniform look on the wood tile. Understand the concept before bashing.

This cost almost nothing, and took about 2 hours, most of which was waiting for finish to dry. I'm not sure how you think it would be easier to replace anything.

smartest response of all. once realized. panic sets in to all!

lvck1 lvck1 how’d you work that one out?! I’ve just layed 20m2 of oak engineered flooring. I can tell you this method is 100x quicker and 100x cheaper then replacing the whole floor!

how much did it cost to fix the two dents.

@@Jack-gz6mi This method generally will not work on engineered flooring. The top laminate surface is too thin.

1. Thank you. 2. You're welcome!

It's probably the fanciest room in the neighborhood at this point.