Pre finishing hard wood floor before laying down

[Mark Bolton]

Why did the bag catch fire? How is that contents in the bag substantially different from what we keep in our DC bags?

Grinding down a nail or tack in the floor would be my guess.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

You can't play marbles on a new prefinished floor. You have to wait a couple years until crud fills in the gaps.

[Tom M King]

If you just have one small room to do, or if you have new flooring laid with little variation in the tops, Lowes rents a Varithane sander with three random-orbit heads that works pretty good...if you can get it in and out of the truck-not for the weak of back. It does have decent dust collection. I wouldn't use it if you have old finish to cut off, unless it's something that will easily come off of a pine floor.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

I've done a 10x12 room with a 6" Rotex. Flat as a pancake.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Why did the bag catch fire?

From what I was told, some joker didn't like the way his freshly poly'ed floor turned out so he rented a U-Sand to remove the poly.
It was an oil based and only a few days old - dry but not cured.
He ignored the warnings on the machine to never let it sit with anything in the bag.
Stuff spontaneously goes up and Mr. Mouth Breather cries foul and sues.
Now no one is allowed to use the bag the machine was designed from the ground up to use - thanks to one goofball.

With the bag, the dust collection was nearly 100%. I was amazed at how clean the sander was.
W/out the bag, you have to hook up a shop vac and jury rig a couple of hoses together.
Dust collection is, at best, about 35%.

[Bill Burkhardt]

First off I want to say Thanks! to everyones quick replies and advice.

I now have a better grasp as to the why sanded and finished floors look so much better, it all makes sense to me now, see I knew there was somethings I wasn't understanding or missing. Boy the one thing I really overlooked is the space for doing the finish and letting the boards dry, good thing I asked the question. I will defiantly be heeding everyones advice here and finish after the floor is down. And now that I think of the process I will be saving my self time to boot, won't be needing to run the boards through the sander and end up doing it right and sanding and finishing once down.

I got the micro v edge cutters for the Woodmaster, for the wider boards, but was a little hesitant in using them even though my test have worked well and my concerns are the same, they would end up being a crud collector…. so guess I'll order another set of flush flooring cutters.

Thanks agin everyone and once I am done I'll post a pic, but don't hold your breath won't be too soon, although my goal is to finally get it done by Christmas.

Bill...