Hello all, I hope someone can advise. We have a beautiful Jatoba / Brazilian cherry floor. After 20+ years it needs refinishing, so we sanded off the varnish. After sanding, some strange marks became visible in the boards. These were NOT visible before sanding. The marks look like grease stains, but I can 100% confirm that no one has spilt anything on this floor. We don't have pets. There was nothing unusual about the sanding machine or the sandpaper. And these marks were absolutely definitely not there until we sanded off the old varnish! We tried putting on a coat of fresh varnish, hoping it would calm the marks down, but no, it brought them up beautifully. The other weird thing is that after one coat of lacquer, the marks felt slightly 'fuzzy' compared to the rest of the plank which was perfectly smooth. After sanding, the marks were as smooth as the rest of the plank. I asked the company where we got the floor varnish from and they told me Jatoba is a very 'oily' wood, and it could be oil that is leeching out of the planks. Does anyone else have experience of this? And what should we do now? We had a beautiful floor - it now looks like someone has spilt cooking oil on it. Thanks in advance, all advice much appreciated!
Hi Jatoba is a very oily wood and is notorious for not accepting many finishes as it is not open pored it may be the original finish was not correct , the fuzzy feel you refer to on certain areas is the grain being raised these areas are obviously more absorbent than the rest of the planks you say once sanded they become uniform with the rest of the plank ie flat and smooth, i dont think oil would be leaching out of the planks after 20 years it is possible you may not have removed all the original finish, does it feel oily ,is moisture present in the floor? there are various methods for removing oil stains from a floor but it might not be oil , it is an issue that in my opinion needs looking at on site . If it is oil then there are various methods to try remove the stain from products bought off the shelf to home made potions we have bleached darker area out and re stained on certain jobs
