Sand and refinish your hardwood floors with a converted floor polisher

I wanted to refinish my Rimu (New Zealand native timber) floors but I was doing it in the evenings and weekends and I didn't want to rent a floor sander for weeks at a time (OK, I'm cheap).  At the hire shop, they had big belt floor sanders but also a big circular floor sander.  I thought the circular floor sander looked strikingly similar to a floor polisher that cleaners use, so I started trawling the second hand market.  I got a floor polisher for $70, which was a bit more than the daily rental rate of the real thing.

So on to the conversion....

Step 1 Disassembly

The floor polisher only came with one brush and in hindsight, the easiest conversion would have been to somehow shave off the bristles and screw a round plate into the wooden back.  At the time, I thought I might need the brush for something but I haven't yet.

The brush base was bolted to a flange plate (like a quick release attachment - Photo 3) and there was a corresponding flange on the machine (Photo 4).  Photo 5 shows the side view of them just separated (when they are locked together there isn't room for the camera lens).  After I got them apart, I realized that I just needed to attach this flange plate to a sanding plate, attach some sandpaper and I could start sanding!

Comments

[tewharau]

Man, I haven't looked at this Instructable in a while. The pictures of Step 5 are of the 1920s building we lost in the Feb 22 earthquake in Christchurch. So much work to strip and chip the plaster back to the brick. The floors were relatively easy after that. We wanted to recycle the timber but they said it was too dangerous and demolished the whole block.

[mrtuba9]

Very intriguing! Did you treat the borders any differently?

[tewharau]

For most of the borders, I could get within 15mm of the edge, & the new skirting board (floor molding) covered the unsanded bits. In corners, doorways & any places I couldn't reach, I used a random orbital sander (1/3 sheet type).

[mrtuba9]

Great! Thanks! We have some floors we want to try it on, but don't want the hassle of renting if it's not going to work well.

[rimar2000]

Excellent instructable!

[tewharau]

Muchas gracias por sus palabras de apoyo.

[rimar2000]

¿Cómo es que hablas tan bien el castellano? (How come you speak such good Castilian? - for the

Anglophone)

[tewharau]

 Vivi en Madrid durante 1990 y 1991,  y no esta mucho situaciones in Nueva Zealandia a practicar hablando, pues mi Espanol esta limitata ahora. 

[rimar2000]

Puedes hacer con el castellano como yo con el inglés: sigue una o más páginas en ese idioma que te impulsen a participar, y usa el Google Translator u otro similar para salir del paso (You can do with Castilian as I do with English: keep one or more pages in this languaje that encourage you to participate, and use the Google Translator or similar to get by)

[cpotoso]

Rimar2000, ya sos famoso!  Eso es el motivo :-)

[rimar2000]

Sí, para Interpol soy famoso...

[cpotoso]

Very good instructable and truly beautiful end-result.  Congratulations!!!

Muy buen instructable y que lindo resultado final.  Felicitaciones!