The better to grind a rounded log. How to choose the right tool for polishing a log house

It is quite an affordable way to acquire a dream home, but in the process there are many nuances that also require investment. Among them is the polishing of the log house. Is it worth saving at this important stage of processing or the risk is not justified?

Video of grinding at one of our facilities

Appointment of log grinding

1 There is a whole range of tasks that can be solved by grinding a wooden house. First of all, it is an important condition for high-quality painting, since it allows you to smooth the surface of the log, removing all the roughness and dust that appeared during the shrinkage. As a result of high-quality polishing of the log house, the paint will lay down smoother, better protect the surface of the log, and most importantly, it will just look much neater and more attractive. In addition, this step is necessary to remove the darkened layer of wood in order to return it to its natural color and expressiveness. Thus, you can significantly improve the appearance of the walls of the log house.

2 Also, grinding the log house with fine sandpaper will be needed as a preparatory stage before applying varnish. Bleached logs are also processed in this way. It should be noted right away that, given the need for a high result and the quality of the prepared surface, one should not refuse the proposals of professional craftsmen. Moreover, the price of polishing a log house is quite acceptable.

3 One of the key factors causing the need for log polishing is the damage of wood by fungi. Unfortunately, the spores of the fungus that causes the blue of the wood are spread by the bark beetle and penetrate into the material even in the forest, at the stage of its growth. As a result, the wood turns into an unpleasant painful color even before the forest is cut down. In addition, non-compliance with drying technologies, improper storage of logs, high humidity, etc. can lead to mold infestation on wood, which will show up as stains of various sizes and colors. Fortunately, these fungi in no way affect the strength characteristics of the material and only spoil its appearance.

• The main thing is that this problem can be easily solved: in order to get rid of the infection and the unattractive color of the wood, the logs must first be dried.
• After installation, the obligatory polishing of the log house is carried out, which removes the affected layers of wood and returns the material to its original beauty.
• Within 2-3 days after this procedure, the polished surface is treated with antiseptics and other chemical compounds of a wide spectrum of action, which will avoid relapse.
• It is worth remembering that before sanding a wooden house and applying the composition, you must wait until the moisture content of the log drops to less than 20%.

The price of the issue

The price of polishing a log house is quite affordable: for professionals it starts from 250 rubles per square meter in the case of the first stage of processing. For the second stage, you will have to pay almost two times less for the same area.

Processing technique

• The tool for grinding a log house represents several options for grinding machines and special wheels for them with varying degrees of grain size. Depending on the area of ​​work and the desired result, different equipment is used.
• So the facade can be processed with an angle grinder (angle grinder) with a flap wheel, the grain size of which is at the level of P60. We can say that this is the minimum required for sanding a wooden house. As a result, slightly visible marks remain that can be removed with more careful processing. For this, the second stage is carried out using an eccentric sander and a wheel with P80 grain.
• Inside the premises, processing is carried out using the same grinder and P80 equipment. This way the log acquires a monochromatic surface, and besides, irregularities are removed. For further painting and varnishing, it is already recommended to grind the log house with an orbital machine and an emery wheel P120.
• It should be noted that polishing gives the best visual effect and a smooth surface. This stage is carried out with an eccentric machine and circles with a grain size of 180-240 units.
• Grinding a wooden house is a whole science, and therefore it is possible to perform this kind of processing qualitatively only with a high level of qualification. For this we offer the services of "Vityaz-Stroy", because we have not only all the necessary equipment, but also masters who have polished more than one kilometer of logs!

An important stage in the construction of a log house is grinding. Such work can significantly increase the operational life of the house, prevent the destruction and decay of wood, improve its aesthetics and attractiveness, and prepare it for finishing. Grinding improves the adhesion of wood to and, and also reduces their consumption during processing.

What is the purpose of polishing a log house

Grinding is a long and laborious procedure that will increase the resistance to moisture and biological contamination. In addition, it will eliminate existing surface defects and improve the appearance of the structure.

Grinding a log house:

• retains the natural shade of wood even when exposed to direct sunlight;
• cleans the surface from dirt after transportation and installation of a log house;
• eliminates unevenness and visual surface defects;
• thoroughly cleans the upper layers affected by mold and mildew;
• ensures uniform distribution of protective antiseptic compounds over the entire surface;
• increases the performance of the material;
• reduces the consumption of paints and varnishes;
• protects against premature aging and destruction of wood;
• increases the resistance of the material to the effects of various negative factors.

When is the resurfacing carried out?

The polishing of the log house can be carried out only after preliminary drying and. The optimal period for carrying out such a procedure is 12 months after the completion of construction work and before the start of the finishing of the wooden structure.

Before carrying out work on external processing, the frame should be covered, and the moisture content of the wood should be no more than 18%. In some cases, the material can change its natural shade, so preliminary bleaching with special compounds is required. Only after the log house is completely dry, you can start work.

Important! Grinding of the house is carried out before installing windows and, arranging floors and ceilings, and decorative finishes.

If well-dried lumber was used for the construction of a wooden house, then grinding can be performed after construction is completed.

Preparing tools for grinding

Beginners believe that grinding the walls of a log house is a simple and affordable procedure that can be done with your own hands without much effort. In fact, to organize the process, it is necessary to prepare a set of special tools, get minimal skills in working with wood and allocate enough free time.

For the main stages of work, use:

• grinder with grinding discs in the right amount;
• eccentric grinding machine;
• belt sander;
• chisel for wood;
• protective flame retardant and antiseptic compounds;
• spray gun and brushes;
• wood sealant;
• oil-based decorative paints and impregnations;
• protective equipment - glasses, mask, rubber gloves, overalls.

The main materials for the construction of a log house are timber, rounded and chopped logs.

Chopped logs and beams

Grinding of logs and beams is carried out using a grinder and grinding discs. Wall processing is carried out from the outside and inside, therefore it is recommended to choose a professional high-power tool in the range from 750 to 1100 W.

You can grind a chopped log qualitatively with special flap discs with different grain levels: from 35 to 60 - for coarse grinding, from 75 to 100 - for fine grinding.

Depending on the thickness of the layer to be removed from the log, the disc consumption is from 2.5 to 5 meters of material length. If the log is previously rounded and the timber is profiled, the disc consumption can be significantly reduced.

For finishing sanding, it is better to use an abrasive disc with a special adhesive backing with a 120 grit.

Rounded log

It is better to grind a semicircular log with a flat surface using an eccentric sander. Despite the low productivity, the tool is equipped with a special blocker, which allows more precise processing of the wood surface.

The working power of the machine is 400 W at a speed of 8 to 12 thousand per minute. Expensive devices are additionally equipped with a dust collector. For coarse grinding, wheels with a grain size from 40 to 60 are used, and for fine grinding - from 80 to 100.

Grinding grooves and corners

Slots in log cabins made of logs, glued or profiled timber can be grinded with a conventional grinder with an abrasive attachment smaller than the diameter of the disc.

A chisel is used to grind the corners of the log house, which will allow you to quickly and accurately remove the top layer of the material before or after cleaning it.

Log grinding technology: stages of work

Do-it-yourself grinding of a profiled bar or log is carried out in several stages:

1. Rough grinding (rough).
2. Processing grooves and corners.
3. End machining.
4. Finishing sanding (fine).
5. Decorative and impregnated.

The process of external and internal grinding of a log house requires frequent changes of working attachments due to the formation of a large amount of wood dust. You can use a steel brush treated with an antiseptic to clean the attachments from dirt.

When working with wood, do not forget about basic safety rules, using personal protective equipment - glasses, gloves, a mask and overalls.

Grinding of timber walls inside and outside the house is carried out in the following order:

1. Personal protective equipment is used against the negative effects of wood dust.
2. Grinding is carried out from top to bottom.
3. The area of ​​the walls is divided into equal sections, which will allow for better grinding.
4. The material is checked for the presence of problem areas - old exfoliated pieces are removed, and the affected areas are cleaned of mold and mildew.
5. A quality check is carried out and those that appear are removed with a wood sealant.
6. Coarse grinding of the surface is carried out using large attachments. This will help to get rid of existing irregularities and roughness. When using a grinder, it is recommended to grind disc nozzles in remote areas of the log house - above window and door openings, near the corners. In this way, possible arcing of the nozzle and damage to the wood can be prevented. In addition, when processing surfaces, it is better to move the tool with the shoulder joint, and not with the hands, in order to get the most flat surface.
7. Next, use fine-grain nozzles to remove wood lint. The material is processed with the tool carefully at medium speed, which will help to avoid damage to the wood and the formation of furrows on the walls.
8. The ends and grooves of the log house are subject to careful grinding, since they are more susceptible to the negative effects of external factors. For end-face processing, you can use attachments with a grain size of 40 to 120.
9. Hard-to-reach places, as well as inner and outer corners, are sanded with a chisel with a blade width of 25 mm.
10. The surface is cleaned of dust with a vacuum cleaner and a nylon bristle brush.
11. The polished walls of a log or log house are treated with antiseptic compounds to protect against mold and mildew, glazing agents - for ennobling wood, fire retardants - to increase resistance to combustion, acrylates - to protect against the negative effects of atmospheric precipitation. To prevent darkening of wood, sanded surfaces are treated with protective compounds no later than 2 days after sanding.
12. The painting of the log house is performed 36-72 hours after the completion of grinding and impregnation with protective compounds.

Grinding log cabins is a long and rather painstaking process, for the organization of which you will need high-quality equipment and minimal experience in working with wood.

We hope that you have already read the section on building a bathhouse, about this in detail (or you can go to the first photo in the left menu). But, in addition to installing the bath and erecting a roof over it, in 2011 we managed to hold a number of events in the house itself. Having completed the process of arranging a new apartment, we will devote the entire next 2012 year to bringing to mind the log house and, if possible, the baths. This article will tell you about the features of grinding the walls of a log house (in this case, the wooden walls of the house).

When you communicate with construction companies at the stage of designing and manufacturing a log house, you somehow cannot even imagine all that burden of problems for the further construction of a house or a bath, which will have to be shouldered in the future. And this situation is of course true not only for log houses and baths, but also for any suburban construction.

But when all these problems begin to arise, you begin to appreciate the charm of human relationships, because in one company they will simply turn away from you as soon as you paid the last payment, while in others they will readily help and answer questions even several years after completion. construction of a log house. I am very pleased that the company "Rus Log" belongs to the second category, in fact, that is why I ordered a bath from them this year, and for the same reason I am writing these lines.

Having filled the "bumps" in the construction of the house, and now also the baths, I understand that other developers will also face these problems. Therefore, let our experience and the advice that we received from the specialists of "Rus ..." become available to other clients of this company, and simply to connoisseurs of log houses and baths.

So, our today's story is about polishing the walls of the house. Well, to be more precise, this year we have polished and painted the inner walls in the house, as well as the inner and outer walls in the bathhouse. We will tell you about the grinding of the bath and its painting in separate articles (see links), where we will briefly dwell on the features relating specifically to the work on the bath. We will also talk about painting the walls of the house in a separate article, this issue was also not as simple as we had assumed before.

Photo of the living room in 2011 after sanding the walls.

How our walls look after sanding can be seen in the previous photo. Of course, the house began to be perceived in a completely different way. My only main mistake is that I had to do the grinding before installing the floors and ceilings, but we will dwell on this in more detail a little later. And now let's go together all that difficult path that led to such beauty.

Note from Fall 2013. It is always interesting to look a little ahead in order to understand, in fact, for the sake of what all this was started. In the next photo, you can see how the living room began to look after sanding and painting the walls. Well, and at the same time after a number of other events (from a fireplace and warm floors, to tiles and doors).

Photo of the same living room, but taken in the fall of 2013.

Initiative is punishable or how I grinded the walls in a log house

At first glance, you cannot say that grinding the walls of a log house is a hard work that requires skill, strength and endurance. When, two years ago, I found out roughly how much it would cost me to grind the inside of the house, I said: what kind of nonsense, I can do just fine myself. Just think - drive and drive with a grinder. I was also motivated by my good friend and senior friend, let's call him Yu.V., since I did not ask for his consent to this publication. At one time (as a teacher, having two higher educations, the degree of candidate of sciences and an associate professor), in a couple of weeks he built a country house for his father-in-law. In short, in addition to a refined mind and a rather sharp tongue, which many were afraid of, he also had golden hands.

Of course, at work we often discussed the construction of mine and his summer cottage. And once he asked me what I actually did in the country with my own hands, because you need to put my heart and soul into the house. So, I say, my wife and I seem to have developed the project in agony, I myself planned the electrician and put it together, perhaps that's all. And he told me - well, really you yourself can not sand the walls, and really, I thought, why not. By the way, Yu.V. he was very unlucky with the builders, he also built a log house, but he ordered it through mutual acquaintances, and they let him down.

Hard work for men - sanding the walls of a log house

No sooner said than done. At that time I already knew that they were polishing log walls with an angle grinder, in the common people - with a grinder. Going into a large hardware store, I asked to show me all the attachments for the grinder. Having chosen two, in my opinion, the most suitable, I asked to choose the disks for them. I already knew that wheels with a grain size of 80 are used for grinding. I especially liked the German attachment with Velcro, it was, of course, expensive (about 1000 rubles), but, in my opinion, very convenient.

Arriving at the dacha, I dropped everything and rushed to try my acquisitions in business. I had the prudence to start from the "invisible" place. In the bathroom on the first floor, I chose the wall where the shower stall will stand. The very first attempt at grinding showed that it is far from so simple. The grinder was simply pulled out of my hands and thrown from side to side, sparks began to fly in all directions from under the circle on the new skin, because of this, scuffs arose, I could not make a smooth strip, everything turned out in some kind of waves.

But the most unpleasant surprise awaited me when I tried to grind the log at the horizontal joint between the crowns. My vaunted German bait with its upper (i.e. back to the skin) part left a fat black streak on the adjacent log. Another thing that unpleasantly struck me was that 80s discs were wearing out at a very incredible speed. The package of discs brought in melted before our eyes. I tried the second attachment in practice, where the grinding disc was fixed with a bolt. As it turned out later, this was already closer to the truth, but even here it was very difficult to grind the logs in the intersections and at the joints. I replaced the German Velcro attachment again, but in frustration forgot to attach the sanding disc itself. When I began to run the grinder along the log, I immediately felt that something was wrong. And then it dawned on me that "it was not the reel ..." and I myself ruined the attachment for almost a thousand rubles. This was the last "dot over i" and I finally understood that everyone should mind their own business.

Later, observing the work of the guys and communicating with them, I realized some of my mistakes. First, you need a different (second) nozzle. Secondly, the new disk must first be slightly ground off on the auxiliary section of the log (usually in the openings for interior doors, which will be covered with casing in the future) - the largest grains fly off and the disk will not "cut" the log and spark. Thirdly, I realized that the grinder should be moved not with the movement of the hands, but with the shoulders and forearms, then smoothness and parallelism of the movement will be achieved, respectively, the log will be smooth and without "waves". The last recommendation will be clear to volleyball and tennis players. In volleyball, when receiving the ball with two hands from below, you also need to "work" with your shoulders and torso, and not bend your elbows, otherwise the ball will fly in an unpredictable direction. Likewise in tennis, receiving the ball with a racket held with both hands also requires similar work of the whole body, not just the hands.

We got a little distracted. In short, even if I knew all this in theory, it would still be hard work in practice. But it was also necessary to scrape off the top layer of wood in the corners with a chisel. In short, then I clearly decided for myself that you need to do something around the house or the bath, but you need to do what you are good at.

By the way, to be objective, I was not the only one who had such a "crazy" thought. With the light hand of the staff of "Rus" I met and maintain friendly relations with Maxim Marinin, our famous figure skater and just a wonderful person (editor's note, more details about the bath, built by Maxim Marinin, told).

Since we are in approximately the same state with him, in terms of being dragged out into the construction process, we periodically exchange interesting and useful information on various aspects of construction. So, once Maxim wrote that he had purchased a good grinder (not a grinder, but a specialized grinder) and was planning to grind the bathhouse frame on his own. He, like me, was alarmed by the cost of this work - at first glance, it seems overstated. I told him my story described above and recommended that he leave it at the mercy of specialists, and do something more familiar myself. But Maxim, as determined as I am, and he decided to try everything on his own experience. The result turned out to be the same, we both realized that "Caesar is Caesar", and it is better to earn money in the way we are used to - it will be more effective.

Grinding tools and consumables

Before bringing the builders to the dacha, I attended to the purchase of grinding discs. The question turned out to be rather nontrivial. But first, a few words about the process itself. The main plane of the chopped walls is cleaned with a grinder with a nozzle put on, on which a grinding disc is fixed with a bolt. But there are places where the grinder does not reach - these are the corners of the cuts, walls near the ceiling or near the floor (if you, like me, already have a floor mounted). There you have to work by hand - with a chisel. The photo below shows two such cut angles. The upper corner has already been cleaned with a chisel, but the lower one has not, the circles are clearly visible, where the disc could reach.

Work with a chisel in the corners of the cut. In the upper corner, the tree layer was manually removed, in the lower - not yet.

It is clear that grinders, attachments and chisels are the concern of builders, but I advise you to take care of the grinding discs separately, so that unpleasant incidents do not happen.

The grinding discs came out in batches. The photo on the left shows the mark about the grain size of the disk (60) in blue.

The best option, if the builders will take on the "procurement" of sanding discs, it is more difficult if you have to do it (for example, buy in addition). The fact is that a very large number of these disks are required. Offhand for home and for the bath, we took about two and a half boxes. Each box contains 8 packages, each package contains 25 discs. In total, there are 200 discs in the box, about 500-600 discs were used in total. As the builders told me, it takes from 1 to 3 disks per square meter of the wall, so just count. By the way, counting the area, and hence the amount of work, and therefore your costs, must be correct. Craftsmen use the so-called height factor. The fact is that your walls are uneven, but with rounded crowns. Therefore, several control measurements are made, a tape measure is taken, and all the bends of the crowns are wrapped around the tape. It turns out that with a ceiling height of, say, 2.5 meters, the real height of the wall is about 3 meters. This was news to me, but now it is no longer for you.

Let's go back to the disks. If you go to a construction hypermarket and try to buy so many discs there, you will understand that it is cheaper for you to cover the walls with gold leaf. Of course, I had to promptly buy several dozen disks, especially those with an increased diameter (150 mm), to be honest, this is not a cheap business.

So what do you do? There is a way out: turn to a "domestic manufacturer"! The fact is that in supermarkets mainly imported products are presented, and the specialists of Rusi Brevennoy recommended purchasing discs from the Luga Abrasive Plant - they are several times cheaper, and in terms of quality they are not much inferior to imports. It is clear that not everyone will be able to “hit the road” to Luga, look for this plant, and so on. Here it will be optimal if the builders organize it. I am grateful to the leadership of "Rus ..." that I had no problems with this. Moreover, usually large construction companies, such as "Rus Log", buy these discs in bulk (wholesale means several dozen boxes, that is, thousands of discs), which costs them significantly less than if you came to the factory yourself. Unfortunately, or rather to my sincere amazement, the Luga plant has neither a representative office, nor even a retail outlet in St. Petersburg, which is a pity.

And one more aspect concerning disks is their grain. For final sanding, use 80 or 60 grit discs (see the circled numbers in the photo above). Of course, the result of using sandpaper 80 is more pleasant to the touch, but most likely it will have to be sanded in the second layer, and for the first time, go with a coarser sandpaper. In the house we made the 80th, and in the bathhouse the 60th, but in one layer. In principle, it feels almost imperceptible, especially after painting. By the way, looking ahead, I will say that after the first layer of water-based varnish you will have to sand the walls again, this time simply by hand, without a grinder, because it is the water-based varnish that lifts all the pile formed on the surface. But we will talk about this in more detail in a separate article.

In addition to 60 and 80, builders use grinding discs with a grain of 40 - for grinding the ends of the logs, of course, this skin will take much less. I repeat - that ideally all these problems should be taken over by the builders, so that you do not have to rush around St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region in search of certain grinding discs, leaving work and business.

So, by the middle of the summer, I had a paradoxical situation, that there seemed to be money for construction, and there were builders for individual work, but I could not start work. The fact is that at that time I was kept by grinding the walls in the house. I could not install casings and internal trims on windows (the specifics of our windows are described) without sanding the walls. For the same reason, I could not lay plumbing communications around the house, respectively, make warm floors, etc. But the most important thing is the fireplace. The fireplace is "a separate song". It was designed for us according to the author's project based on the Swedish Keddy fireplace cassette. We decided to make the cladding of the fireplace from talcochloride, it was ordered back in winter and was finally ready by the summer. The installation of the fireplace, as you understand, was also held by grinding. And the fireplace itself kept the insulation of the roof of the house (by the way, we did not have time to make the roof this year and moved it to 2012).

I called Denis Migachev, gene. director of "Rus" and asked if his "fighters" would be able to polish my house, and at the same time the bathhouse. He replied that, unfortunately, all the brigades are busy and on the road, that at best the nearest brigade will be free in 3-4 weeks. I didn't want to wait so much, the summer is passing. We clicked a cry among our acquaintances and one distant friend of a friend said that he had people in mind who had experience sanding the walls of wooden houses. At that time, I still did not know all the intricacies of grinding and thought that this team would cope with this laborious, but in principle simple matter.

On the next Friday I went and took two "specialists" from the previous object and brought them to my dacha. The guys turned out to be from Ukraine, I organized their entire life, we walked around the house and examined all the walls. Andrey, he was their eldest, said that for grinding the logs adjacent to the floor and ceiling, he would need discs of a larger diameter (150 mm), which I should have bought.

Half Saturday I was running around the shops in search of these discs - all to no avail, Velcro - please, but there were simply no such clamping discs. Desperate, I again called my "magic wand" Denis Migachev. He immediately said - you need to go to the "Castorama" store and indeed, there I took all available discs of the size I needed "to zero", by the way, the price tag "bite", each disc cost 50-70 rubles. Denis also chided me that I did not wait for his guys, because here he definitely guaranteed quality. I had to apologize and refer to an unacceptable, as it seemed to me then, a time delay.

Arriving home, I called my grinders, "reported" that their request was fulfilled - the discs were purchased. And this Andrey answered me and said that in fact they had already left the dacha, they were not interested in work and the conditions did not suit them. I was just taken aback by what I heard and slowly sat down on a chair. Wait, I say, I am inclined to dialogue, if there are problems - voice it, if this is really so, I am ready to raise the price of the work. He replied to me that the house is old (although the log house is only 3 years old), it is very hard to skin, you first have to go through it with a coarse-grained skin, and then again - 80. I hung up and began to come to my senses. In my 45 years, no one has done this to me. Well, find the courage in yourself and tell the customer that you are not interested in this, but tell him to his face, and like that, leaving someone else's trusted house, and running away like a rat from a sinking ship, I could not understand. Having come to my senses, I called this Andrey again and already calmly "put him in his place", explaining that "grown-up boys" do not do this, and that if I find even the slightest problem in my dacha, then I will find him with a friend at throughout the Leningrad region. In fact, I was not cunning, if it had become a matter of principle, then thanks to the connections of my wife, we would have been able to “ruin the life” of these guys, just usually I don’t want to waste time and get our hands dirty on such people. My principle is to draw conclusions, forget and move on. This is what we did. The next day we arrived at the dacha, found the keys to the gate and from the house in the place indicated by the would-be builders, checked that everything was in order and in place. They began to think about what to do next - time is passing.

The second attempt - with a guaranteed result

As you understand, my next call was again to Denis, I told him the story and asked him to reserve his builders for me, we had nowhere to go, so we were ready to wait. Denis promised to speed up the process, and indeed, three days later they removed a specialist named Adrian from the facility, called his cousin Ivan, a beginner specialist, to help him, but Adrian promised to organize the learning process "along the way" and guaranteed that everything would be at the highest level. It was assumed that in a week or two a couple more guys would arrive, but later we refused this, since the pace of the builders' work, and most importantly the quality, satisfied me.

The main task that I set for the grinders was to quickly sand and paint the house, primarily those rooms where the fireplace will be located and the chimney will pass (on the second floor). Secondly, I decided to polish the inside and the bath in order to “close the topic”. Looking ahead, I will note that later we made a decision to polish the bathhouse outside, “walk, walk like that,” although, of course, additional justifications appeared for this step.

The work has begun. The guys started from the second floor so that the dust would not settle on the work already done. I’ll say right away - of course, there was “unmeasured” dust. It is convenient to use ordinary brooms and a vacuum cleaner to clean the walls from dust. Of course, it is difficult without a vacuum cleaner, especially later - when you need to clean the corners and joints of the logs before painting. I still had a "technical" vacuum cleaner, which we bought during the renovation of the apartment, here it once again served.

Grinding is a mountain of garbage ... ... or fertilizer, depending on how you look :)

Based on the results of the work of the first "Uh brigade", I realized that it was necessary to protect the mechanisms of plastic windows and the membrane of the roof. Therefore, I bought several packs of film (it is thin, and there is a thicker - the second is better) - it is usually used to cover furniture and floors during repairs. First of all, I asked the guys to close all window openings with foil and tap the entire roof on the second floor with a stapler (now we have only tiles and a waterproof membrane from the roofing pie in the house), we planned to do the rest of the inner roof after installing the fireplace, sanding and painting the walls.

And so the work began to boil. I will say right away - it was a long process, in total the guys worked for me for almost a month and a half. But during this time, the house was sanded from the inside, the bathhouse was sanded on both sides, all this was painted three times with varnish, and inside the premises - after the first layer of varnish, the pile that appeared was also manually sanded with sandpaper.

Observing their work, I studied grinding technology for the sake of interest. Let's focus on the most important points of this process. Grinding of walls from a gun carriage can be divided into three components: processing the upper and lower edges of the log, as well as processing the flat part of the log. For round logs, everything is somewhat more complicated, there you have to smoothly bend around all the roundness of the wood. The steps described are illustrated in the following three photos.

Particular problems were caused by the sections of the walls near the ceiling and near the floor. Therefore, I will once again remind you of my recommendation: the frame should be sanded BEFORE installing windows, installing ceilings and floors. The main thing is that the log house is under the roof. Here the presence of lags is welcome, it is convenient to temporarily throw boards on them - this is what happened with me in the bath.

By the way, let's talk about one more recommendation that came to light in the course of work. Of course, it is better to grind a new log house than an already settled one. In addition to the mentioned windows and floors, the process of hardening of wood also comes into effect here. Accordingly, the consumption of skin on such a log house will be slightly higher. True, belated polishing also showed advantages, we will talk about this in more detail in a future section devoted to the insulation of a log house after shrinkage.

Let's go back to the difficult areas to work with. With the floors it was a little easier. We plan to arrange underfloor heating on both floors, heated by a heat pump, so the floor level will still be raised by 5-8 cm. This allowed us not to "fight" for the lower edges of the walls. But with the walls at the ceiling of the first floor really had to suffer. While we are planning to make stretch ceilings on the ground floor (they hide the unevenness of the wall logs well), they will be only 2-3 cm away from the existing rough OSB ceiling, so grinding the upper parts of the walls was essential. Several times my workers threw up their hands and said that they would not be able to sand this or that part of the wall. We understood that, of course, this can be done with a chisel, but this is absolutely hard labor.

In life, I am an optimist and an engineer, so every time I calmed Adrian and every time we found a solution. These solutions were born "in pain", therefore, given that they may be useful to you, we will give them briefly.

Grinding hard-to-reach places under the ceiling, in some places I had to modify the tool, be smart, or just work with a chisel

"Know-how", which appeared as a result of brainstorming:

• the guys cut off the rubber pad holding the sanding disc and the sanding disc itself. Thus, from a disc with a diameter of 125 mm, we obtained a disc with a diameter of 70-80 mm, which made it possible to work in many hard-to-reach places;
• somewhere I closed my eyes to the “waves” on the surface of the crowns, because I understood that this area can be sanded only with short vertical movements;
• without hesitation, I allowed the guys to "scratch" the rough ceiling, because otherwise it would not work;
• where it was very tight, I had to work only with a chisel, but there were only two such places left, and even then small ones.

By the way, my experiments with the grinder came in handy. In one of these cases, the emotional Adrian said in his hearts that he couldn't get in there. And I look and think, why do you need to make movements from top to bottom, and if you turn the grinder and start working from the bottom up. Adrian says to me that it’s impossible, the Bulgarian will simply fly out of my hands. Let's try - I said. Believe it or not, in front of the "amazed public" I managed to neatly clean up a previously inaccessible area. Damn, "skill is not spent on drink", I even thought.

Of course, one cannot fail to mention another rather laborious stage of work - cleaning the surface of the logs in the corners of the cut with chisels. The photo below shows this operation in close-up from various angles. In the photo - Adrian himself. His brother, Ivan, out of natural modesty tried to avoid the lens, but I didn't insist.

Time-consuming work of manually scrubbing the corners of overcuts where the grinding disc is missing.
The same work in the corners of the cuts, but close-up.

On the right side of the photo above, you can clearly see that the crowns were not completely polished - the guys then processed the curtains for window and door openings separately. This was due to the fact that most of the windows were covered with a film at that time.

The next photo shows a close-up of a wall made of a round log. Traces of discs are clearly visible. This is what the wall looked like after passing with a coarse sandpaper with a grain of 40.

Polished wall - close-up. Traces of discs are visible. This wall was sanded twice, first with 40 and then 80. The photo shows the result of rough grinding.

As a result of the work done on polishing the house, the living room simply "played". Frankly, my wife and I do not regret the money spent on grinding, because it essentially replaces the traditionally expensive final wall decoration. Once one of our friends, having visited our house, asked, and what will you sheathe the walls with? My wife and I looked at him like "Lenin at the bourgeoisie" and said, what are you, for the sake of these wooden walls, everything, in fact, was started!

Resurfacing the house looks like new

At the end of this article, albeit running a little ahead, we will show how the same room began to look, but with painted walls and an installed fireplace. The upper decorative grate is still missing on the fireplace, so the duct pipes are visible.

Photo of the living room after painting the walls with water-based varnish and installing a fireplace with soapstone cladding.

Do not be surprised that the podium of the fireplace is raised above the floor - this is so conceived, since insulation will be laid on the subfloor made of DSP boards, and then in the underfloor heating pipe screed. According to our plans, the level of the tiles should just reach the level of the fireplace podium.

To take a closer look at the walls, we will give a photo of the chimney against the background of the wall of the attic floor. In general, we were satisfied with the quality of grinding and painting.

Photo of the wall of the second floor, on the left - fireplace chimney (finish with artificial stone)

Any wood loses its original appearance over time and darkens. In some cases, the cause of darkening and even blackening is mold bacteria, which multiply very quickly in undried wood. But even a completely dry tree becomes dark over time due to exposure to sunlight and moisture. That is why wood is sanded before coating.

Grinding the log house removes the top blackened layers and prepares the wood for further processing.

Purpose of grinding

When building wooden houses, many developers want to emphasize the pristine beauty of wood texture, rejecting such a type of finish as painting. For this, the log house is treated with transparent or tinted agents, which, along with decorative functions, also protect the wood from rain and snow. Often, the substances included in the coating form a kind of ultraviolet barrier that protects the tree from the sun.

The problem with woodworking is related to the fact that the log house cannot be covered with protective agents right away. Any house chopped from a log or a bar of natural moisture must first shrink. In this case, the wood will dry out, and the moisture content will be no more than 20%. Only in this case is it possible to apply various protective coatings. However, under natural conditions, wood drying takes months and even years. During this time, the frame will surely darken and turn gray. In this case, grinding will help, which will precede the treatment with protective compounds.

Do I need to grind

There are several types of wooden houses that are subsequently subject to treatment with protective equipment:

• frame houses sheathed with wood materials;
• logs, from natural or rounded logs;
• lumber, from sawn or profiled timber of natural moisture;
• lumber, from glued profiled lumber.

Frame houses are usually sheathed with dry materials, which can be processed immediately. These can be sheets of moisture-resistant plywood or planed profiled boards. Often, such materials are treated with protective and decorative means in advance, before they are mounted on the frame. Grinding is not necessary in this case.

Natural and rounded log

Houses from natural logs are made using debarked timber of natural moisture. They shrink for a very long time, and they dry within 2-3 years. To shorten the drying time, log cabins from such logs are usually erected in winter, when the moisture content of the wood is at its lowest. But in any case, the processing of such a log will take place only after drying and grinding.

Rounded logs are made from ordinary logs by processing them on special machines. By the principle of operation, they are similar to turning. In this case, the top layer of wood is removed, and the log has the same diameter along its entire length. Removing the outer layer removes the strongest fibers. Protection of such a log from external influences is required. But since the humidity of the rounded log is high, it also has to be dried in a natural way, that is, already laid in the log cabins. During drying, the surface of the log can take on a uniform brown color, therefore, treatment with protective compounds is possible only after grinding the rounded log.

Natural moisture bar

The beam is obtained as a result of sawing a log on a sawmill. Drying of such logs occurs in natural conditions. In this case, a core is used for the manufacture of a bar, and the layers lying closer to the outer fibers are used to obtain boards. Often, then the timber is passed through special machines that give it a special profile. Thanks to this, it acquires grooves on the bottom surface and spikes on the top. When assembling a log house, the spikes are tightly inserted into the grooves, thereby providing the device of warm, waterproof and windproof seams.

Since an ordinary log of natural moisture is used to obtain a timber, a frame made of such a material must also be dried. Due to the fact that the density of the timber of the bar is usually less than the density of the surface of the log, drying is a little faster. However, during the drying time, the timber still has time to darken. And in this case, before processing the log house with protective agents, it must be sanded.

Glued laminated timber

Glued laminated timber is obtained from boards or their trimmings. In appearance and structure, it resembles a puff pastry. Such a bar is very convenient to use, since the fibers of the boards that make up it are located in different directions. The timber does not warp and does not lead when exposed to temperature and humidity.

Before gluing, the boards are usually dried and planed, since smooth surfaces adhere better. After gluing, the structure of the bar is kept for some time in the drying chamber, and then it is subjected to profiling, as a result of which, as in the above-described case, the product acquires grooves and spikes.

Note! After several dryings, glued laminated timber already has a low moisture content, so a blockhouse made of this material can be treated with protective agents immediately after assembly.

However, even in this case, it is not always possible to do without carrying out grinding work. The fact is that while the log house, rafters are being installed, the roof, windows, doors are being mounted and processing is taking place outside, the surface of the timber inside the room can still change its appearance. Therefore, during the finishing work inside the house, the walls are sanded from the bar. As a result, the surface becomes perfectly flat, smooth and light.

Grinding rules and techniques

The process of polishing a log house is not complicated. You can do it yourself, and if you have the necessary tool, even a novice carpenter can handle it.

You will definitely need a sander. Depending on which frame is to be sanded, it will be necessary to use either an angle grinder (grinder), or a belt or vibration grinder. In addition, you will need discs and circles. Again, each type of log house and each type of grinder will require its own consumables.

Note! When choosing a grinder, you need to pay attention to its power. It should be no more than 1000 watts.

There is also a relatively new tool for polishing a log house, such as a nylon brush. It allows you to better highlight the texture of the wood, leaving more wood without erasing excess. You can use it in the same way as a grinder.

Grinder application

For grinding a log house, especially a natural one, it is better to use a grinder. Discs with wire hairs, similar to a round brush, are used as consumables. Another option is a flap wheel with pieces of sanding paper. With such discs and wheels, grinding is done very quickly, but roughly. It is convenient to use them when it is necessary to remove the old worn out coating. The frequency of rotation of the disk should be chosen small - about 8-10 thousand revolutions per minute. The same tool can be used for primary grinding of logs.

For finer grinding, special attachments are used, to which round discs made of sanding paper are attached. The back of the paper is lined, and the attachments are designed with many nylon hooks. The sanding disc is simply attached to the attachment and secured using the Velcro principle. Initial grinding can be done with discs with a grain size of 40-60, finishing grinding is carried out with discs 80-100. The number shows how many grains of abrasive are per square centimeter. Obviously, the higher this number, the finer the sanding and smoother the surface.

The use of an orbital sander

It is unsafe to grind with a grinder near the joints of the logs, since a disc caught in the joint can "bite". Another unfavorable factor is the presence of jute or moss gaskets between the crowns. If the brush disc catches on this gasket, the grinder can easily be pulled out of the hands. Under these conditions, it is better to use a vibrating sander.

If the felling was carried out with the remainder, that is, the ends of the logs protrude beyond the outer line of the felling, internal corners are formed, which are very difficult to process. In this case, the use of an orbital sander with a working surface in the form of an iron can help out. The sharp angle of such a machine can be reached even in the most inaccessible places. If this does not help, the inner corners at the intersections of the logs can be processed with a chisel.

Very often, when profiling at the corners of the long edges of the timber, a chamfer is made, that is, the corner is slightly cut off. This is done in order to give the timber a more interesting look and prevent rainwater flowing down the wall from flowing into the joint between the crowns. For processing such a chamfer, it is also best to use an vibration sander.

Work with a tape machine

A blockhouse from a bar can be sanded with a belt sander. In this case, it is imperative to ensure that the direction of movement of the tape coincides with the direction of the grain of the timber. Otherwise, transverse scratches will appear on the surface, which will give the surface an unattractive appearance.

Whitening

It often happens that the wood of a log house is affected by mold fungi during drying. After sanding, the surface becomes smooth, but some areas acquire a gray or blue tint. On dry wood, it may be barely visible.

If such a surface is wetted, then black and blue spots will appear very clearly, spoiling the appearance of the log house. The same will happen during the application of the protective coating. To avoid this, special agents are used - wood bleaches.

These formulations contain, as a rule, chlorine-containing substances. They treat the affected areas of the surface, dry them, and after that the grinding is repeated. Usually one or two applications of bleach are enough to get the wood back to its original appearance.

Safety measures and means of protection

Grinding a log house is accompanied by the release of a large amount of wood dust, to which mold fungi from the affected areas can also be mixed. Inhalation of such dust is very harmful to the human body, therefore work must be carried out in a respirator. Some models of grinders are equipped with special outlets for attaching them to vacuum cleaners. This is very convenient as it allows you to immediately remove dust from the sanding site. Safety glasses must be used to protect the eyes.

The hands of workers must be protected with heavy gloves made of rubber, tarpaulin or split leather. Do not use knitted or woven gloves, as during operation they can catch on the grinding wheel or the belt of the grinding machine. In this case, injury is inevitable. When working with a vibrating grinder, you can use special gloves with vibration damping effect.

If the work is done correctly, grinding will help to return the log house to its excellent appearance, and subsequent processing will preserve it for many years.

Having built a house from logs or timber, the question arises about its external decoration. If a blockhouse is built from logs, it needs to be sanded and unnecessary flaws, remnants of the bark removed. Even if everything suits you in appearance, then you still need to do this in order to extend its service life. Grinding a log house is, so to speak, a mandatory necessity.

If you leave the bark on a log house, then over time it will begin to rot and mold will appear on the house. There is also a high probability of damage to your building by insects such as the bark beetle. Wood that is not sanded or painted will quickly darken and lose its former beauty.

If the house is built of ordinary or profiled timber, there will be no bark on it, but grinding the log house will remove flaws, improve the appearance and simplify further processing and painting.

Modern grinding tool

Such work as grinding a log house or a bath cannot be done without a modern power tool. With its help, the work will be done not only quickly but also efficiently. On sale you will find many different options, below we will consider them.

There are several types of grinding tools:

Belt Sanders

Delta sander

Eccentric sander

This is a nice kind of this kind of tool, it can easily handle many jobs. With it you can grind flat surfaces, if necessary, it can even be used to grind logs, although this is not the best option. He will not be able to process many places of the cylindrical log, but if you want to try it is still possible.

Belt sanders are used for aggressive and rough surface treatment. This tool can be used not only for processing wooden surfaces, it can easily cope with plastic and metal.

The machine can quickly remove a thick layer of the surface, for example, you can grind a non-planed board, a bar, a log.

The working mechanism is an abrasive belt closed in a ring. There are a wide variety of such belts commercially available in different grains. Please note that the coarser the grain, the rougher the surface is processed and the thicker the layer is removed.

When buying such a tool, you should pay attention to the width and length of the abrasive belt used in the tool, the speed of its rotation is also important. The standard dimensions are as follows: 76x457 mm, 76x533 mm, 76x610 mm, the speed should be in the range from 150 to 500 meters per minute. Depending on the amount of work that lies ahead of this tool, you need to select the power, basically it is in the range from 400 to 120 watts. A good plus for this tool will be the ability to smoothly switch the belt rotation speed, as well as automatic belt centering - it will not allow the belt to slide even with circular tool movements.

Abrasive belts for such a tool are of two types - a surface made on the basis of aluminum oxide or zirconium oxide. For wood, zirconium tape is used, it makes a more aggressive treatment. But aluminum oxide is used for fine processing of metal, you can even sharpen a tool with such a tape.

With this tool, you can process any flat surface, it can be wood, metal, plastic and even plaster or putty.

The grinding process is carried out thanks to the circular and oscillatory movements of this tool. The amplitude can reach 5 - 6 mm and even more. With it, you can do fine processing, the degree of which will depend on the amplitude of the oscillations, which can be smoothly adjusted by the tool.

Sanding is carried out with a sole on which sandpaper is attached. Therefore, consumables for it can be bought at almost any hardware or hardware store.

Orbital sander

An eccentric sander is similar to an orbital sander in many ways, but instead of a rectangular sole, it has a round one. Its purpose is to make grinding and polishing. This is done with more complex movements of the sole. It is perfectly suited for polishing a log house. ... Its weight is small, about 600-800 grams, which allows you to work with it even with one hand.

The working area can be special nozzles with felt, sanding discs and sandpaper are also used.

Usually, in such a tool, both the amplitude of the oscillations and their frequency can be adjusted, which is very convenient for use.

Grinder for grinding
Having looked at the tool, you will understand that not all areas of the log house can be processed with grinders, for example, the ends and grooves for such devices will be inaccessible.

But what to do, what tool can be used for such places? Here the grinder will come to our rescue - it is an indispensable tool for the home.

In order to use it to grind wood, you need to buy special plastic attachments. And if you have to work with logs on which there is still bark, you can first walk with a disc to remove paint, this will speed up the process.

Since sanding a log house is a large amount of work, you will have to stock up on a considerable amount of sandpaper.

Log grinding - technological process

So, first, let's prepare the necessary tool for our work. We need:

• Orbital sander
• Small grinder
• Chisel 20 mm

Consumable material:

• sandpaper for eccentric sander with fraction 40 and 100
• sandpaper for grinder with fraction 40
• flat plastic attachment for the grinder

Before starting work, you need to split it into several sections, especially if the wall has a large area. This is done so that the polished sections of the log house are painted. no later than 7 days, otherwise the tree will darken and you will have to do it all over again.

Log polishing according to technology This is as follows: first, we select a small section of the wall, which we can grind in no more than two to three days, then we make a one-time pass with paint. This gives us a guarantee that the treated area will not darken.

If a person is a professional, then he can process no more than 8 square meters per day, and for a beginner this area is even less. Focusing on these numbers, you can already designate for yourself the scope of work for the day.

Also, you should take into account that the longer the log house was left untreated, the more difficult it will be for you to polish it, because you will have to remove a thicker layer of wood.

Grinding is carried out in two stages, at the first stage the blockhouse is sanded with an eccentric sander with an emery paper of fraction 40. In the process we remove the darkened tree but raise the pile, a very poor quality grinding is obtained that will not allow painting. To remove the raised pile, a second pass is made, but at the same time they use sandpaper with a fraction of 100.

Of course, when working, you can use other fractions of sandpaper, but the above options have already been tested by the masters.

When polishing a log house, as you understand the main tool is an eccentric sander, it allows you to do everything evenly without leaving any indentations. The grinder is not used in this case, it is used only for grinding the ends and grooves. In this case, you need to use flat nozzles made of thin plastic, but rubber nozzles are not recommended, because they not only quickly deteriorate, but also leave a black mark.

When working with a grinder, sandpaper with a fraction of 40 is used, if you put 100, then it will burn out the tree. It is also desirable that the grinder be able to regulate its speed - this will be very useful for such work.

Hard-to-reach places in the log house are corners, while there is no power tool that could handle them well, so a chisel is used for cleaning in such places to remove a thin layer. You can clean them before or after sanding, it doesn't matter.

As you can see, polishing a log house, even with modern tools, is a laborious process, but unfortunately you cannot do without it.