Hardwood Floors April/May 2024

AT THE SITE My Machine is Leaving Chatter (Continued) ASK FOR MORE You are not being rude or appearing to be a novice by asking for more information. Photos of the floor are in the “Must Ask For” category any time a machine complaint comes in. Everyone takes photos of their work these days. If the person you are trying to help is serious about getting your help, they will have no issues getting you photos of the affected floors. If it so happens that there just aren’t any photos available, don’t give up on fielding more information. Consider showing some photos of your own and ask which most resemble the results they’re experiencing. Do this several times to build certainty. To an experienced equipment repair technician, photographs can offer enough information to decipher between topography-related, and complexion-related “chatter.” You also should ask a few targeted questions: • Initially, ask for a description of how the problem can be best viewed. Listen for clues that can indicate if they are describing topography or complexion. Asking follow-up questions should be expected, but be careful not to coach your subject into a direction they aren’t moving toward on their own. • Asking how far apart these chatter marks are can be useful. Generally speaking, marks of one inch apart or more will lean toward topography, while those that are less than one inch apart will lean more toward complexion. • Ask if the machine is behaving any differently from normal – unusual vibrations and noises often will (but not always) bring complexion issues to the floor. Poor dust pick-up also can hold some clues. Accumulation of dust in the machine’s drum and upper roller unit can affect the machine’s abilities to dampen vibrations that will compromise its performance in the complexion category. • Ask if this chatter is the type that can be buffed out with some extra screening. If the chatter is a scratch pattern (complexion) issue, it normally will buff out with extra screening. If it is a topographical issue (waves or ripples), the idea of it buffing out with a screen is pretty much off the table. (Don’t get this confused with a guy going nuclear with a sanding disc – keep the idea based upon the limitations of what a screen can do.)

Remember that we all see things, perceive things, and describe things differently. Many times, a verbal description will contradict what a photograph is showing. Nevertheless, getting yourself a good body of information up front will serve you well in accomplishing your first critical goal. Don’t let it all come to a crashing halt with the mere utterance of one word. Before inspecting a floor to determine the cause of the chatter, consider NWFA standards for Evaluating a Wood Floor (Problems, Causes, Cures on page 2). NWFA states wood floors should be evaluated from a standing position, on the floor being assessed, in ambient lighting. Glare from direct light sources must not be used during evaluation. Inspection may take place from floor level, using direct light sources, through magnification, or through destructive testing in order to determine the cause of a problem, but not necessarily to determine acceptability. VIEWING SAND JOB TOPOGRAPHY When the sand job is complete and the final coat of finish has dried, that floor’s “flatness” is a huge factor in how it is judged for quality. Since wood floors are merely a floor covering, it must be considered that the installed wood is only going to be as flat as the shape of the subfloor structure below. With this being the case, there is no reasonable goal of sanding a floor truly flat. Allowances for subtle subfloor effects to the surface shape need to be made for when it comes to judging the result of the floor sanding. This is why we call it “sand job topography” as opposed to just plain “topography.” The main thing to bear in mind when properly examining the sand job topography is to find and focus on the reflected ambient light and the glare off the floor surface. This will reveal what the surface looks like. Have you ever searched the side of your car for door dings? If you have, and were the least bit effective at it, you undoubtedly utilized reflected ambient light in the process. The very same holds true in examining the surface of a wood floor. The focus must be placed upon the fact we are limiting all of our judgments of that floor’s appearance on what its surface looks like. It is vital we position ourselves so that relatively large expanses of the floor can be viewed at gentle angles (standing position) to focus on the reflected ambient light. These regions of reflected light are where we can best see the existence of any irregularities of that floor’s surface plane. As we walk upon that floor, the reflected light moves as well, providing us with a sort of scan in what the floor’s surface shape is as we search for irregularities over an even more broad surface than what a photo bears. While scanning what’s revealed in the reflected light, we continually ask the question, “Do I see a flat surface here, or do I see something other?”

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