Reclaimed Maple Hardwood From NCAA Court

[Ryan Littzen]

Bit of pickle here,

Bought 500 sq foot of ncaa hardwood from a tear down of a well known university.
Came in 16 8X4 for panels stapled to plywood.

Removed all strips from plywood and grinded off staples, have just laid it down as a gym and its pretty uneven, as I guess they sanded it down while in their 8X4 foot panels to be even, and now that I have separated and broken them up there are different heights to the maple hardwood.

Some other info
aout 3/4 inch thick on average, and I don't want to sand down as I want to keep the unique colourings of the top of the hardwood.

Wanted to see what people thought about putting a coating on top self-level - a clear one.

Its got a poly covering right now as comes standard with basketball courts.

Ideas so far:
Idea 1) sand down edges and will notches with wood filler, then put a couple layers of Clear Cote 300 basketball floor covering (similar finish) - concerns, won't be enough to make level

Idea 2) just go epoxy, and create a whole new top finish - concerns - binding to the poly covering, as well as being unable to sand down and future refinish

Idea 3) Poly-aspartic coating - clear - similar to epoxy, being unable to refinish after, and cost for this one and getting clear poly-aspartic can be a concern up in Ontario - Canada

Would love anybodies expertise on this, and I can figure out how to upload pictures I will.

 

[Ryan Littzen]

Pictures below

You can see amount of difference between strips

 

[Nick]

Did you flatten the floor before you installed the wood ?

 

[Ryan Littzen]

Yeah it was a new build, so underfloor was flat, bottom of wood was pretty similar. It's really just the thickness of the actual hardwood strips themselves.

Planing the bottom was not really an option as the staples were ground off, and still residing in the wood itself

 

[Nick]

I would sand , and recoat Ryan..

 

[Ernesto]

I don't understand why those end joints are so out of whack. Looks like they are off a quarter inch. How ya gonna sand that out?

 

[Ryan Littzen]

Because the height of the hardwood is different thickness - they are reclaimed off a university basketball courts. When they are put together in 8x4 panels ... each panel is sanded commercially so you can get very big differences in heights. I am not too sure what to do - that’s why I am throwing it out to the forum here. Thinking of just calling in garage sealer guys and putting a thick clear coating to compensate for the difference - just never done anything with this much difference in grade

 

[Ryan Littzen]

Came on panels like this and were removed one by one

 

[Nick]

I don't understand why those end joints are so out of whack. Looks like they are off a quarter inch. How ya gonna sand that out?

Looks like a 1/4" to me to E.. Give me a real drum sander , and I'll show you ..