Q: Wave showed up on a customer’s floor, no signs until the 3rd coat dried. It is only visible at certain angles and light. What do I do? I don’t know if the homeowner can wait for a refinish. Have a Trio and did a slower pass on the other rooms; staining them soon, but will not know if they have waves until the final coat.
Once the light is broken up with furniture I doubt they will be visible. The home owner has not noticed them. To mention or not, and discount or redo?
A: Any idea why you had this happen? What about a matte finish? Most people don’t like it and I wish everyone would. The lower the shine the better the hiding. If they haven’t said anything and you are this far along maybe it doesn’t bother them. It’s going to have to be your call. You are so far into it now. If you have to sand it again, you will need to do the ‘rough’ sanding on a bit of an angle to flatten out the hills.
As a side note, if you cannot even see the wave until the 3rd coat, they can’t be severe. We do try to be perfect even though that is not attainable. I know you are honest. You know your customer. I’ve had a couple of jobs when I told the customer whom I’d done a lot of work for in the past that I was not happy with the results this time. They were so pleased with me, they gave me a pass on it being a bit less than my best.
Follow-up Q: Thanks for the response. I don’t know exactly why they showed up this time, and yes they are very faint, nothing like some of the photos I’ve seen online. Just stinks putting all that work in and having a product that is not perfect. Going to start cutting on a 15 degree angle on the first pass from here on out regardless, can’t hurt.
A: Yup, I hear you. I’ve angle sanded the first cut on new floors myself. Just have to make sure to get all the scratches. Since moving to rural central Ontario 4 years ago I don’t see many new floors. I’ve installed 2 pine floors. Of the sanding I’ve done up here, 2 jobs were oak, one was ash and the rest were pine with one hemlock. Now that is frustrating wood to work with.
I don’t consider it possible to do an absolutely perfect flooring job. There are far too many variables. But there are good and really good and there is bad and really nasty bad. We don’t do those type of jobs!