Hardwood Floors June/July 2019

TECH TALK

with

Brett Miller

John Alford

Michael Dittmer

Lenny Hall

What is the strangest situation you’ve encountered while finishing a floor?

JOHN ALFORD When our crew came back for a walkthrough on a final coat, they were greeted by an unexpected visitor. At some point during the overnight hours, a snake slithered into the wet finish and got stuck. And it was still alive. Luckily for me, the owner peeled it from the floor and released it. Otherwise, this job might have turned into a board replacement!

MICHAEL DITTMER Back in the early days of my career, we would use lacquer sealer and spar varnish on floors in rental units. My brother and I would have to get 1,000’ sealed in by 1 p.m. that was a 16 cut with kerosene and a 60 cut after that. These buildings weren’t in the best of areas, and after we would give it a first coat of lacquer sealer, we would come back to some units to find 10 or 20 cockroaches that succumbed to the fumes and departed on our floors. In a more current episode, the customer wanted the floors to be as white as they could get, so we bleached the floors and stained themwhite. We hand-applied the coat to keep them looking like snow. After a few days of allowing the stain to dry, we coated it with a catalyzed water-based finish. We thought all looked fine and dandy, only to return to see a floor that turned bright orange! The chemicals in the bleach caused a reaction to that particular water-based finish and caused the floors to turn orange. After a resand and a restain and the correct finish, the customer was satisfied.

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