Getting out the big gun!

[electrolux~137]

 


 


 


<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">The kitchen floor really needed a good stripping and scrubbing, so today I got out the "big gun" -- my 1950s-60s (not sure exactly how old it is) commercial 13" Mercury Bulldog floor buffer (that I found at a yard sale for ten bucks!). </span>

<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">It weighs about 80-90 pounds. It's so heavy that I can't carry it by myself! But all that heft really makes quick work of stripping old wax and cleaning the wood surface with a black stripping pad using Johnson's liquid "Beautiflor" wax.</span>

<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">Then I do a first polishing with the natural bristle-brush when the wax is dry. Then I buff with a white super gloss pad, and then a final go-over with my Electrolux 3-brush electric polisher using the lambs-wool pads. That final pass with the Electrolux really brings the most gleam out from the wax.</span>

<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">Notice Madame Pepperoni supervising in the third photo -- "You missed a spot right here!"</span>

<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">"A Good Time Was Had By All."</span>


 


<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">P.S.: The black spot in the middle of the kitchen floor was there when we moved in. It was caused when the wood floors were refinished and the person doing the job burned the floor with his machine.
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[briankirbyclass]

Beautiful Job! Looks Great! Does Johnson Wax still make Beautifloor, or do you have some you've been saving?

 

[electrolux~137]

 


 


 


<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">No, Beautiflor has not been made for many years. I have a pretty good supply of it stocked up, and whenever I come across some I grab it up. It's great stuff, and the scent is incredibly heavenly. Takes me right back to when I was four years old and Mama was doing her wood floors with her Electrolux polisher attachment and Beautiflor wax. No wax smells better! Especially the next day, when the "solvent note" of the wax has dissipated and you're left with just the aroma of the carnuba wax. I'm telling you, it's pure heaven!!</span>

 

[electroluxkirby]

I could have used that my old house. Your floor looks beautiful!

 

[gmerkt]

Oh boy, do those heavy old floor buffers bring back memories. Bad ones. Army basic training at Fort Ord, CA. The training cadre were manic about shiny floors, the "wet look." The MO was Johnson's Paste Wax bought in the PX, then we took a match to the wax and let the flames melt it. Once it was in liquid form, it would be splashed onto the floor surface and buffed. Barracks buildings in the Vietnam era were often still WW2 "temporary" structures. You can imagine that the floors in those weren't the greatest to begin with. Lots of yelling and screaming at some poor schlob-face who might walk in on the floor right after buffing. Sometimes soldiers would hop down the squad bay, jumping from foot locker to foot locker so as to stay off the shiny floor. Buffing pads? Mostly GI blankets cut into squares, a supply sergeant's nightmare. It wasn't all that unusual to be up until 0200 hours, that's two o'clock in the morning, getting floors squared away for some silly up-coming inspection. Then up three hours later for a little run before chow time. "Those were the days, my friend ..." A million dollar experience that I wouldn't pay a plugged nickel to do over again.

 

[tolivac]

sort of like whats here at work---a Mercury buffer at a yard sale here--UNHEARD OF!!!Maybe I might get lucky and find one at a yard sale on the way home!The wood floors in your house are really nice.Must be an older home.

 

[electrolux~137]

 


 


 


<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">I live in a fourplex built in 1937. That's the same year of construction as the building (also a fourplex) that my former apartment was in. The floors here are gorgeous.</span>


 

 

[tolivac]

Thats nice to have those wood floors to try your floor machine and "Beautiful"wax on.Very nice old place.What does the outside look like?Was in LA not to long ago to see my Mom and sister.Wonder if I passed by it while going thru town.

 

[electrolux~137]

 


 


 


<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">Unless you were wending your way through residential neighborhoods, I doubt if you saw our building. The street I live on is only, hmm, about seven blocks long, cut off on the west end by Redondo Avenue and on the east end by Vineyard Avenue.</span>


 


<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">Here's a photo of the building. Yes, it really is that color!</span>

 

[floor-a-matic]

Johnson's Wax

Available at Home Depot

That Mercury polisher is also available to rent there.

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...P_PARENT_ID&storeId=10051&Ntpr=1&ddkey=Search

 

[electrolux~137]

 


 


 


<strong><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">Right, but that's paste wax which in theory does give a harder and more durable finish than liquid wax, but it's also much harder to use as it has to be applied on your hands and knees with a rag. My middle-aged knees would throb in protest if I tried to spend that much time kneeling down on a hardwood floor!</span></strong>


 


<strong><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">Beautiflor is a liquid wax that is much easier to use - you just pour little "dabs" onto the floor and work them into the wood with the polisher.
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<strong><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">The first gray and white Electrolux B7 polisher came with a special set of brushes onto which, according to the instruction manual, paste wax could be applied with a butter knife. I tried that once and all it did was pretty much make a mess: The paste wax got smeared around onto a small area of the floor and it took forrrrrrever to work it all out.</span></strong>


 


<strong><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">One idea I just came across somewhere, don't remember where now offhand, was that paste wax could be melted by immersing the can in a pan of hot water until it's liquid enough to pour. I'm interested enough in this technique that the next time I do my floors I'm going to try it.</span></strong>


 


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[henry200]

I use paste wax on my wood floors but I let the Oreck Orbiter do the work.  I spread a couple dabs of wax on the white scrubbing/buffing pad with a putty knife, set the Orbiter on the pad and away I go.  The pad picks up the dirt and leaves an even coating of wax on the floor with no smearing.  After an hour I go over the floor again with the wool bonnet installed for the final "finish."  One scrubbing/buffing pad is good for doing the whole house and it cleans up easily by flooding with boiling water.

 

[tolivac]

No,didn't see the BRILLIANT red apartment house-really neat,though.Passed by several that looked sort of similar.