Like painting over gloss paint, with most floor finishes, you need to lightly sand between coats to ensure adhesion of the next coat for finish to the existing coat. This is the case for new installations, refinishing, and recoating existing wood floors.

First, lets discuss starting with bare wood. After you have finished sanding and buffing your floor, leaving no sander marks, and the smoothest possible floor you can, you need to get all of the dust off of the floor. The less dust you leave on the floor, the lower your chances of getting serious grain raise after you apply the sealer coat. Vacuuming is an absolute necessity. In addition to vacuuming, there are two additional steps you can take to get even more dust off the floor.

1. Bona’s Tampico Brush. Before vacuuming, using the soft bristle Tampico Brush from BonaKemi on your buffer will get additional dust that has been pushed into the soft grain on the wood out and ready to be vacuumed.
2. Microfiber Mop. We sell Microfiber Mops from Basic Coatings, BonaKemi, Norton, and Synteko. Yes, this is the same mop that you use to clean the finished floor. However, without cleaner, these mops work great for tacking the floor, and removing any dust missed by the vacuum. This is done after vacuuming.

If you are staining the floor, nothing is done to the stain coat, put either a sealer or finish directly over the stain. If the stained, unsealed floor has been allowed to sit, or get dust on it, you may need to vacuum first. If you do, be sure that your shoes are very clean and non-marking, or you put hospital like booties over your shoes, and make sure your vacuum is clean, including hoses and cords that may drag on the ground. A backpack vacuum in great in these situations.

After your floor is sealed and dry, you should notice some grain raise, no matter what type of floor finish. You will have more grain raise on coarser grained woods like Oak, and more with waterbased finishes. Your next step is to abrade the sealer to ensure the adhesion of another coat of finish, and to knock down that grain raise.

We sell a number of different abrasive solutions for abrading between coats. They are:

Bona Conditioning Pad/Delta Sheet System

A 320 grit pad with optional rougher hook and loop delta sheets to make it more aggressive. These fit on a standard Buffer.

Norton Sand Dollars

Newly introduced this year, Norton’s Sand Dollars are foam pads with abrasive on them which allow a tighter scuff pattern than pads or screens. Four different colors/grits are available depending on what type of finish you are working with. These fit on a standard Buffer.

Norton Conditioning Pad/PSA Paper

Similar to Bona’s system, Norton’s Conditioning Pad is a 320 grit, with the option of rolls of adhesive backed paper that are available in different grits to give you the bite you need. In addition to the 16″ Standard Buffer size, Norton manufacturers the pads in 7″ for the edger, 8″ for 3 disc orbital sanders, and 12″ x 18″ for square random orbital buffers.

Norton Screen-Bak Screens

Test, Tried, and True. Screening a floor has been the contractor’s choice for years. A sanding screen on a white buffing pad will abrade the finish and knock down any grain raise. Just watch out for swirl marks. Again, Norton manufacturers screens in 15″, 16″, 17″, 20″ for buffers, 7″ for edgers, 8″ for 3 disc orbital sanders, and 12″ x 18″ for square random orbital buffers.

Other issues you may encounter are cutting to far into the sealer where you effect the color of the floor/stain, and leaving swirl marks. If you seeing that you are cutting through the sealer, you are either using an abrasive grit that is to aggressive, or you are moving too slow. If you see that you are leaving swirl marks, you are either using a grit that is too aggressive, or you are moving too fast. Finding the balance of things is going to be the hardest hurdle to overcome.

With whichever system to decide to use, after you have abraded with your machine, don’t forget to hand abrade anywhere that your machine did not get like corners, under toe kicks, and under radiators. After you have done abrading, vacuum and tack before you apply your next coat of finish. The Microfiber mop works great to tack. Do not use a “tacking cloth” as these usually contain bee’s wax, which if allowed to be put on the floor can cause adhesion issues.

With most modern Waterbased Floor Finishes, you have a window of opportunity, usually less than 24 hours, to put down your next coat of finish without abrading between coats. The finish is hard enough to walk on, but still soft enough to accept the adhesion of another coat. This is often referred to as Hotcoating. For example, BonaKemi’s instructions say that you can do this, but “For smoothest results, abrade between all coats as necessary.” When using a Bona Traffic system going natural, I would abrade after the sealer, and put two coats of finish back to back. When using the same system over stain, which acts as a sealer, I would abrade after the first coat of finish before the final coat. When using the four coat Street Shoe system, I would apply two coats of sealer back to back, then come back the next day abrade and hotcoat the final two coats. Finding the perfect balance of time and effort again is needed to yield the best and most profitable results.