Teak Strip Floor Sanding

[belizesailor]

Main salon sole has teak strip flooring. TDS cualking between strips is still in good shape, but varnish needs redoing. Thinking of a Dremel Multi-Max for this task. Anyone used this or similar tool for such work?

https://www.amazon.com/Dremel-Multi-...=Dremel+sander

[rbk]

Are you trying to remove the caulking? Thought it was good?

[belizesailor]

No, sand off the varnish. The Dremel tool above also has a sanding attachment.

[leftbrainstuff]

You have caulking internally and not wood like holly or maple?

Personally I find the dremels under powered for most jobs.The battery powered sanders and grinders are also useless for high duty cycle tasks like sanding.

Sail Life on Youtube does great reviews of power tools. He has had good experience with Bosch products.

[rbk]

Get a decent random orbital sander for sanding (I’d recommend a stripper for interior sole work though) ROS’s strip fast with low grit and can provide a mirror finish with high grits. Get a cheap mouse sander ($20) for inside corners or block and paper. If the varnish is still adhered to the wood with just surface scratches and minor gouges just sand the entire surface with 220, wipe clean with methel, mineral spirits etc and re-coat. Unless there is significant damage, gouges and darkening of the wood there’s no good reason to completely strip it down. IF there are some spots where the wood has been exposed and has darkened you can sand them clean feathering out the old varnish and re-coat with your preferred layup; this will look discoloured for a while but will eventually match or you won’t care. Every few years give it a light sanding and re-coat to build the layers. And avoid having to complete a major strip.

[Greg Mason]

I am assuming that this is a laid floor, not a panel floor laid in sections which is removable. otherwise, it could be planed and refinished, taking out any dents or marks.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Greg Mason

I am assuming that this is a laid floor, not a panel floor laid in sections which is removable. otherwise, it could be planed and refinished, taking out any dents or marks.

Its a laid floor, not going anywhere without a SawsAll and and crow bar.

[Suijin]

If you're only taking the finish off to renew the varnish (ie not taking it all off to do wood repairs) then an orbital and a multi tool (which the Dremel is) would be my weapons of choice, using the multi only in hard to reach areas. If I was taking it down to the wood I'd probably go at it with a heat gun first to get the varnish off. That would take the finish off without removing any wood material. I'd then scrape/finish sand the wood. If you use a sander to take all the finish off a floor you're going to end up with an uneven surface and probably removing more wood than you need to in some areas.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by rbk

Get a decent random orbital sander for sanding (I’d recommend a stripper for interior sole work though) ROS’s strip fast with low grit and can provide a mirror finish with high grits. Get a cheap mouse sander ($20) for inside corners or block and paper. If the varnish is still adhered to the wood with just surface scratches and minor gouges just sand the entire surface with 220, wipe clean with methel, mineral spirits etc and re-coat. Unless there is significant damage, gouges and darkening of the wood there’s no good reason to completely strip it down. IF there are some spots where the wood has been exposed and has darkened you can sand them clean feathering out the old varnish and re-coat with your preferred layup; this will look discoloured for a while but will eventually match or you won’t care. Every few years give it a light sanding and re-coat to build the layers. And avoid having to complete a major strip.

Orbitals are too big. The caulking is in good shape and I would like to avoid damaging it or redoing it, but teak strips are up to about 2" wide.

Pic taken during original installation.

[belizesailor]

Aargh, app dropped pic and cant add pic on edit...so hopefully here it is again:

[rbk]

A 5.5” orbital would make short work of that. Again I’d be going heat or chemical for interior work and keep the sanding to a minimum. The dust you’ll create will make its way everywhere no matter how clean you are. The Stengel is the wrong tool imo

[belizesailor]

Thanks

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Suijin

If you're only taking the finish off to renew the varnish (ie not taking it all off to do wood repairs) then an orbital and a multi tool (which the Dremel is) would be my weapons of choice, using the multi only in hard to reach areas. If I was taking it down to the wood I'd probably go at it with a heat gun first to get the varnish off. That would take the finish off without removing any wood material. I'd then scrape/finish sand the wood. If you use a sander to take all the finish off a floor you're going to end up with an uneven surface and probably removing more wood than you need to in some areas.

Its just a refinish, the varnish in low traffic areas is not too bad.

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Orbitals are too big. The caulking is in good shape and I would like to avoid damaging it or redoing it, but teak strips are up to about 2" wide.

Pic taken during original installation.

If you try and avoid touching the caulking and just sand the wood with a multitool you're going to end up making a hash of it. It will take you eons and you'll risk ending up with a wavy, uneven surface.

The caulking is sandable I suspect. Since you're going to put a hard coating on it anyway it really doesn't matter whether the sanding abrades the caulk surface...it's going to be covered with varnish anyway.

Multitools are really only good for detail sanding as that pad is so small that holding it flat to a surface is a challenge. Also, areas of the pad sand at different rates...the points of the pad faster than the center.

[belizesailor]

The caulk is TDS, will look it up.