How Ultimate Floor Care Helped Matthew Guest Flooring Restore a Historic Skittle Alley
A Flooring Challenge Like No Other
At Ultimate Floor Care, we take pride in helping flooring professionals solve complex challenges with expert advice, innovative tools, and high-quality products. One recent project with Matthew Guest Flooring put our expertise to the test—restoring a historic skittle alley that had endured decades of wear, poor maintenance, and multiple layers of finish buildup.
A family-run business since 1942, Matthew Guest Flooring is known for its commitment to quality and bespoke commercial and residential flooring solutions. When they took on the challenge of bringing a skittle alley back to life, they faced a unique problem: layers of old finish and polish that clogged abrasives, making sanding nearly impossible.
The Challenge: A Gummy, Unworkable Surface
The Skittle Alley was made of solid maple, a resilient but tricky wood to work with, especially when dealing with years of built-up finishes, polishes, and coatings. When Matthew Guest Flooring attempted to sand the surface, they quickly encountered a frustrating issue:
🛑 Standard abrasives kept gumming up and clogging.
🛑 Sanding wasn’t cutting through the layers effectively.
🛑Manually scraping the top layer was time-consuming and inefficient.
With the project grinding to a halt, Matthew Guest reached out to Ultimate Floor Care for expert guidance. His message was simple:
"I need some of your knowledge and wisdom, if you don’t mind 🤦♂️. We have this skittle alley, and it’s heating up and turning very gummy. We can scrape the top layer off easy enough, but the residue left is still blocking up the pads. Any ideas on an easier fix?"
The Solution: The Right Tool for the Job
Understanding the challenge, we immediately recommended the Diamabrush Wood Tool—an abrasive ceramic-metal 10-blade system designed for removing heavy coatings, finishes, and residues that traditional sanding methods struggle with.
🔹 Why the Diamabrush Wood Tool?
✅Cuts through thick finishes without gumming up
✅Works on rotary machines with the correct clutch plate
✅Saves time and money by reducing abrasive wastage
To ensure seamless integration, we matched the riser and clutch plate to Matthew’s Pallmann Spider rotary machine and arranged next-day delivery to get the project back on track.
Once Matthew and his team put the Diamabrush Wood Tool to work, the results were immediate and impressive:
✔️ The tool removed the built-up finish effortlessly, eliminating the gummy layer without needing excessive Sanding.
✔️Significant time savings—instead of burning through boxes of abrasives, they efficiently stripped the surface down to bare maple.
✔️The Diamabrush tool remained in excellent condition, ready for future heavy-duty refinishing projects.
The Finishing Touch: A Glossy, Durable Skittle Alley
After successfully stripping the surface, Matthew needed a heavy-duty gloss lacquer to restore the maple’s natural beauty and durability. We recommended:
🔹 Bona Classic UX – A high-quality primer to prepare the wood for the final coats.
🔹Bona Traffic HD Gloss – A commercial-grade, high-durability lacquer perfect for high-traffic areas like a skittle alley, ensuring long-term protection and a stunning glossy finish.
Once applied, the results spoke for themselves. As Matthew Guest Flooring described it:
"Bringing a skittle alley back to life! We love a challenge, but this one was a true unknown. Decades of wear, poor maintenance, and endless re-coating had left this well-loved skittle alley in serious need of attention. Rather than replacing it, we took on the task of restoring a piece of history, and the results speak for themselves."
"Stripped back to bare timber, repaired, and refinished using Bona products, freshly black-painted ball runs for a sleek, clean look. The transformation was incredible, and it’s now ready for many more years of play."
"Huge thanks to our friend and supplier Cameron at Ultimate Floor Care for always delivering top-quality knowledge and products at speed!"
The Impact: Efficiency, Cost Savings & a Thrilled Client
With Ultimate Floor Care’s expert guidance, the right tools, and the best finishing products, Matthew Guest Flooring saved time, reduced material costs, and delivered an exceptional result that brought a piece of history back to life.
📌 Problem: Thick layers of old finish and polish made sanding ineffective.
📌Solution: Diamabrush Wood Tool for initial stripping, followed by Bona Classic UX & Bona Traffic HD for a high-durability finish.
📌Results: Faster, more efficient refinishing with a beautiful, high-gloss, professional finish.
Why Professionals Trust Ultimate Floor Care
This project is a perfect example of why flooring professionals rely on Ultimate Floor Care for more than just products. We provide:
🔹 Expert advice tailored to your unique challenges.
🔹Specialised tools that save time and effort.
🔹Fast and reliable delivery so you can keep projects moving.
🔹Hands-on training & ongoing support whenever you need it.
Have a Tough Flooring Challenge? We Can Help.
If you're facing a tricky restoration project, need expert product recommendations, or want to improve your sanding efficiency, we’re here to help.
📞 Call us at 01223 081401
📩Email us at hellow@ultimatefloorcare.co.uk
🌍Visit our website: https://ultimatefloorcare.co.uk/