Call it "handscraped" instead of chatter. :) Seriously, some people pay extra for wood wtih all kinds of dings and divots in it, so maybe add some more, then another topcoat.

Thanks for the input, but I'm not sure we're prepared to ding up the floor intentionally!

Update: the owner isn't coming until tomorrow morning.

There should be no ripples. They should have finished with a random orbital sander, not a drum.

The line that its impossible to get out is just not true. They may not own the necessary equipment to remove them.

Depending on how bad it is, could be justified to resand. Granted a in house refinish will not be perfect like the prefinish.

You will get little imperfections. But theres a line between a little and a lot.
Some pics may give us a better understanding.

Either way if you want the "chatter" gone it would have to be resanded

Well, the owner came by and said that they keep their sander (drum?) a little looser than other people so that the grain in the wood is allowed to be a little raised. I realize that this is mostly BS, but have to admit it looks good. It just has raised lines you can see in the sheen at a low angle. He claimed that to be considered chatter, it would be visible in the stain, which this is not. In any case, my family is seriously against living through any do-over, so we will need to love it as it is. He did agree to fix a couple of other minor issues. I'll try posting pictures tomorrow.

You should be able to see it a bit in this photo.

This may be clearer.

Yeah thats bad enough in my opinion to have it refinished. Most floor inspectors or pros will agree.

He was feeding you BS. Doesnt matter what condition youre drum is in. Knowing that it produces chatter like that means extra steps need to be taken during the buff stage.

My drum sander has the potential to do that as well. I know that. I admit it. Ive had guys look at it and give me all kinds of answers. But i put in the time doing extra steps to prevent any of my customers floors to turn out like that.

If you can live with that more power to ya. Just beware you have a small window of time to have that fixed before you "accept" it and lose any legal power.

We had two floors put in of red oak. Both floors are full of ripples. Our contractor told me that I'm crazy, I'm just looking at the grain. Refused to believe a second opinion from a very respected company. In addition to the finish being worthless all of the floor wet matched to some rooms with old flooring. House was built in 1922. The second opinion advised that the old flooring was white oak, not red. The contracted wants to take a board out of the floor to prove that it is not white oak. Is there any way to tell?!

i agree, any pro should be able to tell the difference. If you have a picture of the floor, id be more than happy to give you my opinion. as long as its a clear upclose shot of the floor, i have to be able to see the grain in the wood.

thats white oak

Thank you VERY much! Pretty obvious, yes?? Now the question is what should we do?! Two floors of crappy soft red badly put down and horribly finished and everything covered with chatter. Guess the writing is on the wall and we know what has to be done!!!! Thanks again!

the darker the stain, the less the differences will show. red and white oak do get mixed up from time to time, If you wanted white oak installed and paid for white oak, then i would fight for white oak. If you can get a decent refinisher in and stain it dark, it would probably be liveable, but that might not be your cup of tea.

Thanks! Now why does the stain have these light areas? They put 2 coats of stain on the red, one on the white. The red has these light patches all over.

hard to say exactly, but i would probably file it under poor finishing. why did they stain the red twice?

To match the white oak (which they said was old red oak!) which got only one cost of stain. The living room and upstairs hall and two bedrooms have white oak. They put red oak in dining room, kitchen, pantry, powder room, side and back hallway, breakfast room, library, media room, office, laundry room, huge bathroom and master bedroom. And it's a mess, looks horrible! Our contractor says there is no chatter, no white oak, great finish and refuses to accept any opinion other than from someone he will choose to bring in! I fidget an opinion that the red oak was very low quality.

If your Contractor is seriously being this hard headed, i would say let him pull a board from the exsisting, but then is he going to admit he was wrong, or try to fool you by lieing saying its really red oak? who knows, hes probably not going to listen to reason from you or some guy on the internet :). I suggest you get a Certified Hardwood Flooring inspector out. he will over rule anything your contractor says in a court of law. Thats like last resort though.

Thanks so much. We did that. He doesn't believe than because heydays the expert is "our guy!" Shaking my head!