The Werkmaster Guide to different types of Hardwood Flooring
Wood flooring is any product manufactured from timber that is designed for use as flooring, either structural or aesthetic. Wood is a common choice as a flooring material due to its environmental profile, durability, and restorability.
Types of Wood Flooring
Solid Hardwood
Solid wood flooring is 100% hardwood milled from lumber. As a natural material, hardwood reacts to changes in its setting, like moisture and extreme temperatures, which cause solid wood to shrink or expand. All solid hardwood can be sanded and refinished if needed. Solid hardwood is not recommended for installation below ground level or in bathrooms.
Engineered Hardwood
Engineered wood flooring is built-up of layers of wood. It consists of three to ten layers, called plies, that are glued together. This multi-ply structure gives engineered wood superior stability, greater than solid wood, which reduces concerns associated with shrinking and expanding when temperature and humidity change. Engineered wood can be installed below ground level making it a great choice for finished basements.
Why are WerkMaster machines so effective on hardwood?
Our machines are designed to be a planer. Belt and drum sanders cause divots, stall marks and chatter marks and are difficult to operate. Edgers can be a nightmare to run. Stained floors require a tremendous amount of blending with a buffer, which isn’t usually dust proof and is labor intensive.
WerkMaster machines are very fast and agile, and will remove overwood, coatings, carpet glue, paint, tongue oil, staples, paint and just about any coating on a wood floor. We pioneered the design and the use of diamond abrasive tools for refinishing hardwood floors. We developed a sandpaperless system of diamond abrasive tooling and custom screens; that means you can complete thousands of square feet of hardwood floors without using sandpaper.
Aluminium oxide factory finished engineered floors are popular today and often need refinishing. The problem is the amount of wood to work with is limited. A belt sander can damage an engineered floor in a heartbeat, or remove too much wood, shortening the life of the floor. Not a worry with a WerkMaster, because our sandpaperless system removes the finish quickly without damaging or removing too much wood.
WerkMaster gets to within 1/8”(3mm) of the wall, delivers the best finish, can complete a floor in two steps, runs in any direction on parquet floors, reduces time and labor, and does it all dust free. Fast, agile, easy and fun to operate, test drive a WerkMaster™ and see how quickly you too can improve your bottom line profits.
WerkMaster™ delivers superior results that most competitors only dream of achieving. Tradesmen are amazed and delighted with the ease of use and total customer satisfaction achieved with a WerkMaster™.
WerkMaster™ pioneered Octi-Disc™ Technology in 2005
WerkMaster™ floor refinishing machines were initially manufactured to polish Absolute Black granite, one of the hardest stones to polish. Realizing a need for a machine that could also grind and polish terrazzo and concrete, as well as being able to refinish hardwood and VCT tile floors, the original machine was completely redesigned. The result is the WerkMaster’s patented eight head Octi-Disc™ Technology with the ULTRA-Flex Plug ‘N Go Tooling System. Our machines grind, sand, strip, buff, burnish, polish and edge to within 1/8″ (3 mm) of the wall or cabinet kick. The advantage of a WerkMaster is that one machine can outperform the competition’s technology on any hard surface – floors, walls, ledges, countertops, stairs and risers.
Octi-Disc™ Technology
What makes WerkMaster™ so unique? Octi-Disc™ Technology and SPEED. Our 8 counter rotating, self-balancing heads spin at disc speeds that are unheard of and are unavailable on today’s planetary, direct drive or drum machines, and it allow all our machines to get to within 1/8″ (3mm) of the wall.
ULTRA-FLEX Plug ‘N Go Tooling System
Our new patent pending ULTRA- FLEX Plug ‘N Go Tooling System is a major advancement in tooling design. The challenge was to develop a system that would allow the machines to not only flatten a floor, but to follow a very wavy, uneven floor using the same tools and drive plates. The result was an ingenious system that uses various hardness rubber grommets, bumpers and INDEXING. No need to add heavy weights, simply increase or reduce point pressure by easily adding or removing Plug ‘N Go segments.
You can vary the desired flexibility allowing you to flatten the floor or follow the floor better than any planetary grinder or hardwood belt sander. How wavy? Remove deep birdbaths or fishbowls up to ¾ inch deep! Grind and polish around drains. Plug ‘N Go technology also eliminates the frustration and pain of dealing with lippage, expansion joints, large cracks, and curled wood floors or decks.