Read This Before Attempting To Touch Up A Wooden Floor With Steel Wool

Hardwoods are always a great flooring choice, as they're beautiful, durable, and can be refinished to increase their longevity. However, to properly care for your hardwood floor, you can't follow the same rules you might use on laminate, tile, or other solid-surface options. When cleaning wood floors, you must consider the wood type and the floor's finish before using chemicals or abrasive tools like steel wool. If you use steel wool, you might damage your hardwood floors. In some cases, it can exacerbate existing damage or possibly even cause stains.

You may have heard that steel wool can be used to remove stains and scratches from your hardwood floors, though. While it's a great tool in any homeowner's arsenal, it's not the right tool for every job. Steel wool can be used to buff out damage to your hardwood floors, but different types of wood flooring respond differently to steel wool. It can be a practical — and inexpensive —way to buff scratches out of an oil-based floor, but you should not use it on a floor with a water-based polyurethane finish. It's effective at getting out light scratches, but it should always be followed by a floor polish or wax. It is not sufficient to address deep gouges; it is not abrasive enough. Also, the steel filaments could snag on the rough edges of the wood planks, potentially causing damage.

When combined with vinegar, steel wool will stain the grain of oil or wax-finished flooring. This is actually a common method for ebonizing wood. If you're not looking for a black blotch on your floor, don't mix these two materials. If you use vinegar to clean your flooring before buffing out a scratch with steel wool, make sure the vinegar has fully evaporated to avoid a color change.

A good defense is the best offense when it comes to flooring, so you should strive to protect your hardwood floors from scuffs and scratches rather than addressing the damage after it's been done. Still, accidents happen, and damage is inevitable. To buff light scratches out of your floor with steel wool, you should start by cleaning your floor's surface. Let it dry completely before going in with No. 0000 fine steel wool. Rub the steel wool gently over the scratch, following the wood grain.

After buffing, you might need to follow up with fine sandpaper to blend the edges. Then, apply the same oil or wax originally used to finish the floor. Wait for it to set, then buff it out until the surface is uniform. If your floor keeps sustaining scratches despite your best efforts, you should consider refinishing it with a harder, more durable protective coat.