Custom Handscraped Wood Floor
Posted by Aaron Schaalma
Once the sanding process has been completed, it's time to start hand scraping. Now, when I said it's a very labor-intensive process, I meant it! All the work is just like it sounds -- handscraping. There are a couple of different scrapers that can be used for this process. One scraper has a hook on the blade, which gives a deeper scrape to the floor. Another scraper, that has a smaller blade with no hook, can be used to give your floor the appearance of how it was done before there were sanders. On this job, we’ll be using the scraper with the hook blade. Now that we know which scraper we’ll be using, we need to make sure the blades are nice and sharp and that we have plenty to eat!Yes, I said eat! Hand scraping is quite a workout! So, now that we have all the food ready and blades sharp, we’re ready to start. We begin by starting against a wall and hand scraping the floor from one wall to the other side, making sure that we have the whole floor scraped. This process is repeated until the floor is completely hand scraped. There are a lot of wood scrapings from doing a floor, and by a lot, I mean a “mountain” of wood shavings!
Once we’re done scraping the floor, we need to do a final sanding of the floor to smooth out any rough spots. This mayrequire some hand sanding, because of the irregularity from hand scraping.
Now that the sanding is complete, it’s time to finish the floor. There are a couple of different finishes which can be applied to the wood floor-- normal film finish or penetrating oil, which is my favorite on hand scraped floors. On this particular floor, we used a ceramic fortified water- based finish. In order to make sure the floor has some texture from scraping, we used a different applicator to make sure the finish completely covered the floor.
Now that the floor is complete, it has a great texture and feel from the hand scraping.
Hand scraping is just one of the few artistic options that can be used to customize your floor. To find out how we can give your floor the unique look you desire, contact us today!
