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Trade Guides

Problem-solving articles for floor sanding contractors. Mid-job fixes, prevention, and the products that help.

Featured

How to Sand a Timber Floor

Full step-by-step guide with video. Watch Sap & Grain Timber Flooring sand a cypress pine floor with Bona Traffic HD Extra Matt. From prep to final coat.

Standards

Anti-Slip Coatings for Timber Floors and Stairs

AS/NZS 4586 P ratings, NCC stair requirements, all brands compared, NATA testing labs, and how to quote commercial stairs with a slip test certificate.

Coatings

Tannin Bleed on Blackbutt

Green or grey haze through a freshly coated blackbutt or tallowwood floor. Why it happens and which Bona primer stops it dead.

Sanding

Sanding Marks Through the Finish

Drum stripes, edger swirls, witness marks. How to find them under raking light before they show up in the topcoat.

Adhesives

Hollow Spots Under Glued Floors

That dead-sounding patch on a glued-down floor is the adhesive losing contact. Green Grab and how to keep boards down.

Coatings

Fish Eyes in Water-Based Finish

Round craters in fresh polyurethane mean silicone or oil contamination. How to find the source and recover the floor.

Sanding

Picture Framing Around the Edges

Visible boundary between belt and edger zones. Blend the two scratch patterns before you coat instead of after.

Sanding

Dust Nibs in the Topcoat

Tiny bumps in cured polyurethane. Where the dust really comes from and how to control it at source instead of after the fact.

Moisture

Cupping and Peaking in Timber Floors

Two opposite board distortions driven by moisture. When to sand, when to wait, and how to read the moisture meter before committing.

Moisture

Moisture Content: When to Sand and When to Wait

Target MC ranges for Australian conditions, how to test a concrete slab, and why sanding too early is the most expensive mistake in the trade.

Maintenance

Screen and Recoat: Refresh Without a Full Sand

A buff and coat restores a worn Bona floor in half a day. When it works, when it doesn't, and how to test compatibility first.

Coatings

Finishing Spotted Gum: Oil vs Poly

Interlocked grain, natural oils, and tannin make spotted gum one of the trickiest floors to finish. The poly path and the oil path, step by step.

Coatings

Staining Timber Floors: DriFast Tips

Bona DriFast Stain application tips, species absorption differences, and the full stain-to-topcoat system for an even result.

Got a job problem?

Ring with the species, the conditions and what you've tried. 24 years of Bona experience on the other end of the phone.

Call 1300 950 551

Calculator tools

Coverage Calculator → -- how many litres of finish for your floor area

Grit Sequence Picker → -- SIA grit sequence tuned to species, condition, machine and finish