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Show Best Way to Prepare Floor for New Finish Given a common floor to refinlsh under ordinary conditions, scrub thoroughly with warm water to which household ammonia has been added, about one ptrt ammonia to every eight parts water. Grease spots and stains mny require special scrubbing with a stronger solution of ammonia water. Where this fails, washing with alcohol or benzine should be tried. Paint spots may be removed by washing with turpentine and sandpapering. Washing Wash-ing powders should never be used. They are hard to remove completely and their presence is harmful to the varnish which follows. Waxed or oiled floors do not require such cleaning, but the wax (if ordinary soft wax) or oil must be thoroughly removed by washing wash-ing with alcohol or benzine. Failure to remove all of this means failure of the job. A durable varnish finish Is not possible where wax and oil remain. For floors that are badly discolored, the next step is to bleach them. This Is done by applying a solution of oxalic acid crystals (as oxalic acid is poisonous, poison-ous, care must he exercised in handling it) and hot water as many crystals as the water will dissolve. This solution Is applied with a scrubbing brush and is left on the surface for about 24 hours, then washed off thoroughly with clear, hot water. In bad cases, repeated re-peated applications of the bleach are necessary and the final coat only should be washed off with hot water. The next process is to drive all nail-heads nail-heads below the surface of the wood and to fill all nail-head holes with putty and cracks and crevices with a good crack and crevice filler. If the wood Is to be stained, the putty and the crack filler should be colored to the desired shade by working Into them some of the stain. After the crack filler Is dry. the wood should be sandpapered sand-papered or otherwise made perfectly smooth and clean to receive the finish. |