We had the pleasure of working with a very nice customer who wanted rift and quartered white oak. Rift and quartered has a very specific look and is not the usual hardwood you see in homes. The planks were 5″, while we never recommend 5″ planks in Idaho due to stability issues (movement), with rift and quartered you are able to use bigger planks with no problems. Rift and quartered are very stable and generally do not move very much as a 5″ plank as it acts like a 2 1/4″ plank in regards to movement. Below you can see the end product and what white oak looks like as well as what rift and quartered looks like in oak. The qualities of rift and quartered are the same for red oak as white oak. The planks look very nice and seemed to have opened the house up a bit.
Sanding process for this wood:
- Belt sand @ 60 grit @ 16 degrees to make floor flat
- Edge @ 60 grit
- Vacuum
- Fill
- Belt sand a@ 60 grit straight grain
- Trio @ 60 grit
- Vacuum
- Edge @ 100 grit
- Trio @ 100 grit
- Vacuum
- Edge @ 120 grit
- Trio @ 120 grit
The initial belt sand of 16-30 degrees really makes a floor flat. This happens since the belt is crossing many boards at a different angle then just straight and will get rid of ridges from board to board. Then we went straight with the grain to get rid of the marks in the floor created by going cross grain. With the Trio the floor really starts to come into itself. A trio makes your floor perfectly flat… even hallways & kitchens! Most companies in the Valley do not have a Trio and the tight spaces like hallways/kitchens when we go to refinish them years after are “wavy”. They are wavy because an edger is used in this area but an edger will not make a floor flat. With a Trio your floor will have no waves. You can read more about the Trio and why it is necessary one is use on your floor here. We decided to go to 120 grit on the floor to just give it that extra feeling of flat.
The finish used on the floor was 2 coats of Glitsa Green Label. We normally do 1 coat but with white oak with the tannins in the wood we wanted to make sure they were not pulled out of the wood and this is recommended by Glitsa. Then finished the process off with 2 coats of Bona Traffic Satin. This gave the floor a nice sheen that will protect the floor for many years to come.
