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Dealing with some old hardwood floors from the 40s/50s. Haven't been waxed in decades. They really need sanding, conditioners, stain etc along with a poliish. Any off the shelf polish that actually polishes and conditions the wood. They'll wind up absorbing a lot at this point. Also afraid an cheap polish might actually make they harder to properly redo in the future.
Probably not a great idea to mix current polishes with older ones with different chemical content.
Trewax and Minwax make good waxes for hardwood floors. If the color is faded you can use a reddish-tinted or brown-tinted wax.
Make sure to use their "wood floor cleaner" to strip off old wax and dirt, first.
Apply with the "scotchbrite looking" pads of your floor polisher, allow to dry a bit as described on the side of the can, then buff with soft brushes, then polish with lambswool pad.
This gives a far better appearance than sanding and complete refinishing, unless the floors are truly too badly gouged and/or water damaged. You're looking at 70-80 years of patina made up by tiny scratches and scuffs and oxidation. That's what gives old floors their classy look. All of that is instantly lost, forever, as soon as the power sander touches it. Now you've just got the same floor as the two year old McMansion down the street, or the basketball court at the local high school.
Trewax and Minwax make good waxes for hardwood floors. If the color is faded you can use a reddish-tinted or brown-tinted wax.
Make sure to use their "wood floor cleaner" to strip off old wax and dirt, first.
Apply with the "scotchbrite looking" pads of your floor polisher, allow to dry a bit as described on the side of the can, then buff with soft brushes, then polish with lambswool pad.
This gives a far better appearance than sanding and complete refinishing, unless the floors are truly too badly gouged and/or water damaged. You're looking at 70-80 years of patina made up by tiny scratches and scuffs and oxidation. That's what gives old floors their classy look. All of that is instantly lost, forever, as soon as the power sander touches it. Now you've just got the same floor as the two year old McMansion down the street, or the basketball court at the local high school.
I agree with everything you stated. The difficult part will be finding a smaller floor polisher that a regular person can handle. I rented one once for a house I had just bought (back in 1989) but it literally dragged me around the floor. I now have an older model Hoover floor waxer and polisher, but they're almost impossible to find anymore. It does a super job and I can handle it even at my advanced age.
Aren't there certain polishes/chemicals you can't polish over and must strip or use one ok for floor and existing polish?
Yeah, but if you're talking about 1940s-50s construction and they "haven't been waxed in decades" you've probably got ordinary floor varnish with wax, not modern polyurethanes or epoxies.
Floor polishers/buffers are counter-intuitive. The larger they are, the easier they are to handle. Movement is accomplished with slight lifting or depressing of the handle to make it just a tiny bit off-balance. If you see someone using a death grip, they haven't mastered the technique.
In our old ct colonial my father used bowling alley wax called Butcher's wax, as I recall. The floors were beautiful.
Just don't walk on them afterwards with only socks on your feet - you're liable to go scooting across the floor or end up on your butt. I used to get a running start on my old heart pine floors to se how far I could go.
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