Tips for hardwood floor repair

Tips for hardwood floor repair

Nothing gripes you quite as bad as putting a gash in your hardwood floors. Here are a few tips for hardwood floor repair, from minor dings to major repairs.

SCUFFS AND SCRAPES

These are the easiest to hide, a little bit of Old English Furniture Polish will go a long way towards hiding these minor abrasions.

GOUGES

If the gouge is too deep for the Old English to blend it, you may have to putty the gouge with color matching wood filler putty. Woodcrafters Supply, and some of the home supply stores have a good supply of filler. You will have to fill the gouge, and then use spray polyurethane to seal the repair, after allowing the filler to set up. Be sure to get the poly in a matching finish. It comes in gloss, semi-gloss and satin. If you are not sure, use the semi, it will blend with most finishes. Spray it on with a side to side motion, going with the grain of the wood, starting the spray at a parallel to the floor, and sweeping across the repair several times. Let it dry, repeat the spray at least once, preferably twice. This should blend the finish well if done properly. Use thin coats, don’t load the finish or it won’t blend

REALLY DEEP GOUGES AND BURNS

For these you will have to remove the flooring and replace the damaged areas. For strip flooring, mark the boards to be replaced with chalk or a crayon, you don’t want to remove the wrong ones. If the flooring is laid in short strips, remove the entire strip, if in long strips, you will have to cut the strips in staggering lengths. Either way, here is the way to do it.

To remove strips in staggering lengths, use a framing square, lay it flat on the floor with one leg lined up on the edge of the board to be replaced, make a perpendicular pencil line on the board using the square. This will be your cut mark. Repeat on the other end of the board if not removing the remainder. If more than one board is to be replaced, stagger your cuts by at least one foot, two feet or more is better. This is called lacing the floor, and it will blend the new wood with the old better than cutting out a square two feet by two feet. After you have marked the cuts, use a circular saw with a framing blade installed, place the front of the saw shoe in contact with the floor, pull the guard back and hold it there, and slowly lower the rear of the saw towards the floor, cutting through the wood from edge to edge along the cut mark. Stop just before the saw gets to the edge. After making these cuts, you will need a sharp 3/4” to 1” chisel to finish the cuts, since the saw will not have gone all of the way through the wood from edge to edge. Stand the chisel up in the cut, with the beveled edge facing the portion to be removed, strike the chisel until finishing the cut. Once the cut is completed, use the saw to make two parallel cuts an inch apart, along the length of the board to be removed, from end to end. Make sure that your saw blade depth has been set to the thickness of the flooring or slightly deeper. Finish these cuts with the chisel. Use a pry bar to carefully remove the remainder of the board by prying from the long cut you just made. Check the groove in the remaining floor, and set any nails that protrude into the groove. Clean out the area with a vacuum cleaner. Cut your new flooring to length, using the square to mark the cuts. (Note: A power miter saw is the best way to get a square cut.)Turn the new board over, lie it on a work surface, and remove the bottom edge of the groove, using your chisel for this job, this allows the top edge of the groove to lie against the tongue of the existing floor board. (Another note: A table saw is the best way to remove the groove edge). Install the new board, slipping the new tongue into the old groove, and laying the remaining groove on the new board against the tongue in the existing board. Tap to set into place. Do not tap directly on the new wood, use a scrap block to prevent “hammer tracks”. Use a small 3/32 drill bit to drill several holes through the remaining groove and into the existing tongue, as well as at each end of the replaced board. Hammer 6d finish nails into the pilot holes, setting the heads just below the surface. Use colored wood putty to fill holes. Repeat as needed until all repairs are complete.

 Use an orbital sander and 80 grit sandpaper to smooth the boards, stain and finish to match using prior techniques. If you are not sure about matching the stain color, practice on scrap flooring with several stains until you are satisfied with the result. If your existing floor has been previously refinished, you may need to use a belt sander to get the new boards down to the same thickness as the old, prior to using the orbital sander.