Refinishing a platform - restoring surface grit.

[Patrick Donnelly]

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?

[Patrick Donnelly]

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.

[Eduardo Chile]

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

A wire brush seems to be a viable idea

[Patrick Donnelly]

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.

[Dean Saunders]

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