The Swedish Version of Floor Finishing, Part I
We installed the kitchen floor, unfinished cherry. This strongly implies we must finish the floor at some point :-)
I had thought we'd do the water-based varathane, but Anita decided we should do a two part, acid cured finish know as the "Swedish process". Why they call it that, I don't know, but I suspect someone decided that if the Swedish do things to fish that involve industrial chemicals, they should have a floor finishing process named after them. Or maybe the Finns were tired of the Swedes making bad flooring puns.
This is not a process for amateurs, even accomplished ones such as ourselves, so we hired out. Interestingly, it was difficult to find professional, even though the conventional wisdom said this was the best floor finish.
Thursday was sanding day. They guy needed access to our fuse box. No problem, I thought, as I have various easily accessible 220V 30A and 50A outlets.
No, he wanted to remove to the breaker panel cover and directly connect his 220V sander to the buss. Uh, not gonna happen. I can understand why he likes to do that, but I also know why it's not such a great idea. Mind you, my breaker box is clean and pristine with nicely dressed wires, but it's not really point. He was persistent, "I don't have any plug adapters, just these clips", but I showed him the outlet in the kitchen, and removed the outlet so he could directly connect to the bare wires.
I don't think he expected a homeowner to:
A.) Be there when he was sanding
B.) Be competent enough to meet his requirements
C.) Have to tools to do so within 60 seconds
So away he sanded, and did an excellent job. Friday and Saturday were application day. They weren't kidding when they say you should leave your house. But I'll cover that in part two.
I had thought we'd do the water-based varathane, but Anita decided we should do a two part, acid cured finish know as the "Swedish process". Why they call it that, I don't know, but I suspect someone decided that if the Swedish do things to fish that involve industrial chemicals, they should have a floor finishing process named after them. Or maybe the Finns were tired of the Swedes making bad flooring puns.
This is not a process for amateurs, even accomplished ones such as ourselves, so we hired out. Interestingly, it was difficult to find professional, even though the conventional wisdom said this was the best floor finish.
Thursday was sanding day. They guy needed access to our fuse box. No problem, I thought, as I have various easily accessible 220V 30A and 50A outlets.
No, he wanted to remove to the breaker panel cover and directly connect his 220V sander to the buss. Uh, not gonna happen. I can understand why he likes to do that, but I also know why it's not such a great idea. Mind you, my breaker box is clean and pristine with nicely dressed wires, but it's not really point. He was persistent, "I don't have any plug adapters, just these clips", but I showed him the outlet in the kitchen, and removed the outlet so he could directly connect to the bare wires.
I don't think he expected a homeowner to:
A.) Be there when he was sanding
B.) Be competent enough to meet his requirements
C.) Have to tools to do so within 60 seconds
So away he sanded, and did an excellent job. Friday and Saturday were application day. They weren't kidding when they say you should leave your house. But I'll cover that in part two.