How To Remove Wood Filler From Hardwood Floors?

If you have excess wood filler on your hardwood surface and want to remove it, this article certainly has a lot of useful information for you.

Stick along if you also want to find out how to remove wood filler from hardwood floors.

Remove wood filler from hardwood floors by sanding and using mineral spirits. Sand to remove the filler, then apply mineral spirits to dissolve and eliminate residue. Achieve effective removal of wood filler from hardwood floors.

Keep on reading to find out more about how the process works.

How To Remove Wood Filler From Hardwood Floors?

Removing Solid Fillers

There can be situations where the wood filler solidifies and becomes impossible to wipe or remove with a cloth.

This can usually happen when you accidentally spill the fillers on the surface of the wood to apply a little extra, hoping that it would contract and become level with the surface.

However, this does not happen, and you find out that you’ve used excess material, resulting in an uneven surface on the floors.

In such a case, your only solution is to use sandpaper to grind the surface to the level, or even if you remove it entirely, you must use sandpaper with a higher grit.

Here is a detailed process of how to remove the solid filler from the surface of the wood:

• The first step you need to take is to get a few sandpapers with grit of 150-220.
• Secondly, you need to clean the floors properly to ensure no dirt and debris, which can make the sanding process uneven.
• You can mop or vacuum the floors to remove any solid residue on the surface of the floors.
• Once done, start the sanding process (move from low to high grit) from the edges of the wood filler, which will help to loosen up the hold of the filler on the hardwood floors. Moreover, it can also roughen it up and ensure that it can be removed easily.
• This will allow you to scrape it off better and remove the substance from your hardwood floors.
• Once the surface is roughened up, it is necessary to take a scraper (either plastic or metal) and scrape the solid layer of the filler to loosen it from the surface.
• However, it would help if you scraped too hard. Otherwise, the floors will get scratched, and you will have a damaged floor at the end of the process.
• While removing the filler entirely from the surface or a cavity, it is easier to puncture the center body and scrape out as much as possible. You can also act vigorously in this area as it won’t hurt the wood.
• If the edges are rigid and would not come off, try using a heat gun to warm up the edges and make them lose their grip on the floors. If a heat gun is not accessible, you can also use a hairdryer for this purpose.

Once you have completed this procedure, most of the wood filler will have come off.

However, you should do something extra to remove the remnants of the wood filler from the edges.

Wood filler is a very strong material that bonds with the wood rather than simply sticking.

This makes removing it much harder than other methods and calls for extreme measures to remove wood filler from hardwood floors.

A suitable way to remove the rigid residue or remaining wood filler would be to use solvents that are made to remove such substances.

An example would be isopropyl or acetone, which are useful in this scenario.

These solutions have corrosive abilities, dissolving the filler layer and making it come off completely.

Use a small amount of the solution and rub it in, then let it sit until the corrosion starts. After a few minutes, the wood filler will loosen up and give away to the solution.

Once this has been done, you need to clean the surface using a damp cloth to collect any remnants of the procedure.

This would also collect any extra dust and prevent it from accumulating on the surface of the hardwood floors.

Lastly, you need to sand the surface again to ensure that the floor is level and that no rough edges are formed during the scraping or removal of the wood filler.

Clean the floors with a damp cloth or mop to ensure no residues on the hardwood floors. Once all this has been done, wipe the floors dry to ensure no moisture remains on the surface.

Removing Liquid Fillers

Wood fillers are much easier to remove when they’re in their liquid form. They still haven’t bonded with the wood, and being liquid means that most of it can be wiped off easily from the surface of your hardwood floors.

However, it is noteworthy that sanding the floors or the wood filler is not a good idea as it is in a liquid state.

Sanding will only create a mess and will surely yield 0 results whatsoever. Therefore, you need different methods to counter the wood filler accumulation on your hardwood floors.

A good idea would be to scrape the layer of the wood filler using any scraper or putty knife.

It would be highly suitable and help remove the wood filler from hardwood floors without damaging them.

Scrape out as much as you can from the surface of the wood until you can’t do it anymore.

At this point, you will have to use a clean, dry cloth to wipe any remaining wood filler on the surface of the wooden floors.

Lastly, if it starts to solidify and bond with the wood during the cleaning process, you can use the same mineral spirits or acetone to remove it by loosening it up.

Once done, the wood filler would be completely removed from the wooden surface.

How To Partially Remove Wood Filler?

If you had been applying the wood filler purposely on the surface, it is possible that you spilled it on the surface and ended up with access.

In such cases, you only need to remove the excess spillage, not the original layer. While removing such spillage in a wet state won’t be difficult, as all you need to do is scrape it off.

While removing the solidified layer of the wood filler can be a real challenge, it is much easier to handle in the wet state.

If the layer has solidified, the only solution here is to sand down the surface until it becomes level with the rest or reaches a point that was the originally intended layer.

Moreover, if the filler has not dried, the only solution in this situation is to use a chemical stripper, and that too, with extreme care so you do not damage the existing layer.

Besides, It is safe to use the solution on a small area on the corner of the floor or in an area not extensively used to test it and see what results it would give.

Once applied on the surface, let it sit for around 15 minutes before you can scrape it off using the same methods as mentioned earlier.

Clean with a damp cloth and dry afterward for proper removal.

Conclusion

Removing wood filler from hardwood floors is not an easy task but it can be done without complexities and failure if proper procedure is followed.

If you are also facing the same problem, follow the guide above to get rid of this issue once and for all.