A few years back I bought something like 5 or 6 thousand board feet of 4/4 hickory lumber straight from the mill. I dried it and sold most of it, but still had about 2k bdft left. I've been remodeling our house and decided some hickory flooring would suit it fine. I planned it, jointed it, ripped it, tongue it, grooved it, end trimmed it, and laid it. Now I'm in the process of finishing it. We are living in this house so, I have to finish one room at a time and use exhaust fans to keep the smell out of the rest of the house.
I bought a 11 amp 4x24 Makita belt sander and put 40 grit belts on it and did a test area of a few square feet. It worked fine, but was hard on my hands and knees. So I improvised. I also have a plywood jig made up that has three 5" orbital sanders in it for the final smoothing. Poor folk got poor ways. Prolly gunna have a under $2 a sq foot in this floor unless you count my labor.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMG_20190718_120741149.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1563592596)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMG_20190718_172636597.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1563592620)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMG_20190719_211842987.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1563592642)
smiley_thumbsup
Beautiful!
Wow Jake!
That floor is gonna make you smile for a lot of years to come! Beautiful!
Great work
Your a clever fella
Floor laying and finishing is hard work.
Always done my own even when building homes for others.
A bad sanding and finishing job can waste a nice floor.
Bruno
It looks awesome!
What a beautiful floor!!!!!
Excellent job.
great job and floor looks excellent. I can't get enough of people's ideas for jigs and holders for hand power tools to convert them to better functionality.
First the cabinets, then the countertops, and now the floor. Very beautiful and very impressive ;D.
I haven't been able to work on the remodel much lately. Working too many hrs at work. I finally got some days off so I'm back at it. The sander kept clogging up with a 36 grit belt so I went down to a 50 grit. That was taking too long so I attached a small shop vac and now it'll work with 36 grit again. I also duck taped a small 4lb weight to the front to balance out the weight of the shop vac. I'll also post a pic of the "finish" sander. Using 80grit on the 3 orbitals.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMG_20191031_113533147.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1572540009)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMG_20191031_113611898.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1572540048)
Quite a rig you've got there for sanding.
Good looking floor!
(Correction: rigs)
Quote from: btulloh on October 31, 2019, 12:47:25 PM(Correction: rigs)
Correction: Cobbled rigs :D.
Good Ole Southern ingenuity.
Pretty amazing with amazing results! 8)
Well, now I don't feel too foolish for my thoughts! I picked up a power trowel (for concrete finishing) with plans to make it a sander (have a bunch of big sanding disks) for my cabin. No A/C power so why not try gas powered? (all the windows will be open...) The gas tank was rusted out so no idea if this thing will even run.
Are you sure you are not Red Green in disguise?
Great looking floor with the different species. I did the same with diff species plus diff widths thumbs-up.
Nice Floor!
Quote from: petefrom bearswamp on November 01, 2019, 08:05:51 AM
Are you sure you are not Red Green in disguise?
Or at least related! :D That orbital gang sander is something else. That is a very nice floor, once finished it will be a real asset.
Wet and dry
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMG_20191102_162700258.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1572817187)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/25938/IMG_20191103_075411107.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1572817184)
Those "jigs" are absolutely brilliant! Goes to show what a bit of ingenuity can do!
How did you attach the 3 orbital sanders in your little set up?
Very nice job, again, mad respect for ingenuity!
Brandon
WOW,,, Terrific job ! What did you use for the finish?
Wow, that really is a cat's meow!! 8)