Re: [TANGO-L] Dance floors

[SRyals01 @AOL.COM]

In a message dated 12/9/03 5:17:31 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Crojas @HACIENDACDC.ORG writes:


> Dan Timmins built a dance floor on his basement some years ago, he got
> 4'x8'x 1/2" or 1" rubber matts, the kind used for horse stable floors,
> he cut strips of 4" wide and put them on the floor, 12" or 16" apart,
> then he screed 4'x8' sheets of particle board on top of the rubber, oil
> stained them and voila, he had the best floor I ever danced on, and not
> to expensive since particle boards were used.
>

We built a similar dance floor (almost 2000 sq. ft.) for our dance studio and
it lasted for 7 years until we closed the studio (and then sold the floor).
We taught lessons every day and had dances open to the public every weekend. It
held up well and continued to keep it "spring".

We build the floor out of 4X8 sheets of 3/4 tongue and groove "chipboard"
instead of particle board and it added a nice look. We glued rubber pieces
similar as above to 1X2 furring strips and then screwed the chipboard on top of it
(rubber side down between concrete floor and 1X2s, then the chipboard on top of
the 1X2s).  We spaced the furring strips 2 feet apart and offset the 4X8
chipboard so the short edges weren't all in a line and didn't fasten the floor to
the walls. We did have to sand the chip board to get it smooth, the we used a
couple of coats of oil based polyurethane to seal it. We also used a "mop on"
wax every month just to keep the finish because of the use it got. (The hard
part was finding a wax that didn't make it too fast or too slow).

But the floor looked good, held up extremely well, and had a spring in it
that you could actually feel. You could dance on it all day on it and not be sore
from the impact like you get dancing on concrete or non-floating floors.

Stan