Refinishing a platform - restoring surface grit.
 

I've got a weightlifting platform that could use refinishing.

When I originally varnished it with a polyurethane/stain, I used the unfinished side of a 3/4" birch plywood sheet. It gave the platform a real nice, rough texture that had a lot of grip. Over time, that wore down to the point where it's almost slick. How do I restore that rough texture?

I've already tried sanding it down with a medium grit paper and giving it a new coat of polyurethane/stain, but that didn't do anything. Should I just try again with something rougher?

Anybody have any advice?

I'll have some time to put towards it this weekend and would like to get this platform back to it's original conditioning if possible.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Uds...finish&f=false

A wire brush seems to be a viable idea

Didn't work. I took my angle grinder to it for a good 45 minutes, but the area cleared by each pass was way too narrow to make much of a difference, and it took multiple passes to get down to bare wood again. While it could give the bare wood a new, rougher texture, it still didn't turn out nearly as good as the original.

Don't even think about trying this with a handheld wire brush; you won't get anywhere.

In the future, I'll simply by a new piece of plywood or rely some sort of floor wax to get the proper surface.

Varnish and sand has worked for my platform at home. But there are fine grit products available for use with various floor covering surfaces. At a previous gym I trained at, we covered the platforms with a fine grit mixed in with varnish. Worked great for three years, then needed recoating! Worth a shot