Making Basketball Court Lines: Experience Based Guide

I learned the wood flooring business over 35 years ago working with a company that installed and refinished gym floors. I like to say I literally have acres of experience. Most gym floors are lightly sanded every year and top coated. This light sanding is done with a floor buffer and a screen. A screen is a cotton mesh resembling a porch door screen with fine sand abrasive glued to it. It is the same as what they use to sand drywall compound between applications only the size of a buffer pad.

This screening accomplishes two things. It smooths out any damage that has been done to the gym floor during the school year and also makes microscopic scratches in the finish so that there is a physical bond as well as a chemical bond between coats. This helps to virtually eliminate peeling.

It is a pretty standard practice to put two new coats of finish on every summer vacation. This is why when you came back from summer vacation the gym floor looked brand new.

Over the course of 15 years you end up with a build up of 30 coats of finish which often is discolored. The company I learned the wood flooring business with came in and sanded all 30 coats off including the lines.

Before we would start to sand the floor we would go and "punch the lines". Usually we did this with a Phillips head screwdriver. These punches would serve as reference marks for putting on the new lines after the sanding was done. The distinctive x holes ensured that we would not confuse them with any other holes.

We would take a Phillips screwdriver and and punch hole in the floor six and eight inches from the outside corners of each game line in both directions. These holes would mark the center of the line. By having two marks we could also tell which direction the marks were referencing.

Sanding 30 coats of finish off is very hard work. We would usually leave at 5:30 Monday morning and come home late Friday night. We would work 14 to 15 hours a day and stay in motel rooms for the whole week. Our company covered the whole state of New York, all the New England states, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Normally we would sand the finish off with 36 grit sandpaper however some floors required starting with 16 grit paper. After all the finish was off the entire floor we would sand the entire gym floor with 60 grit sandpaper to take out the scratches form the 36 grit paper. The the entire floor is sanded again with 100 grit sandpaper to take out the scratches from the 60 grit sandpaper.

The final sanding is done with a 100 grit screen on a buffer to give a really smooth surface. After cleaning the whole floor with a towel draped over a broom handle we apply a first coat of sealer. This towel on the broom is soaked with mineral spirits and then rung out as dry as we can make it. This acts very much like Endust and picks up all the traces of dust on the floor.

The following day we screen the first coat of sealer and tack the floor again with the mineral spirit towel and let it dry. The following day we will screen the floor entire floor again and tack it and when it is dry we start putting on blue tape for the game lines.

To apply the tape we have two of us hold a string very tight so that they are lined up with the holes from the Phillips screwdriver. We use out shoes to hole the tape so we can pull it really tight and not hurt out hands. The owner of the company would then put the lining machine where the line should start and fasten the tape from both sides of the machine to the floor and then start walking so that the pointer follows the string line.

On a two inch wide link the machine would put to perfectly straight lines of 3/4 inch tape so that the inside edges of the tape measure 2 inches. Once the first line is done we would move the string to the next game and he would walk back and lay tape for this line. We would repeat this process all across the gym doing all the two inch lines regardless of what game they went with.

Once all the lines in one direction were done we would turn and do the same for all the lines running at right angles to the first set of lines..

A forth person would start with a razor knife and cut out the corners where the lines overlapped so it created on continuous line.

Once all the straight lines were done the owner would take one person and do the circles and the three point lines.

The lining machine is is basically an aluminum plate with wide wheels that are similar to roller skate wheels on the bottom. There is a handle at the top that looks like a hacksaw handle. There are two spindles on each side to hold masking tape. Right over the front wheels are two guides that can be adjusted from one inch to four inches. There is a large pointer on the front to follow the string line.

To do the circles a piece of pipe is attached to the front wheel . A sliding point with a ring is tightened to the pipe and becomes the center of the compass. With one person holding the point firmly into the floor the other person runs the machine and lays down two perfectly curved lines of tape. To do the three point lines additional lengths of pipe are added. .

While the circles are being done the rest of the crew grabs a paint brush and one color of enamel paint. Usually the major basketball court is black or the main school color. Practice basketball is often royal red and runs art right angles to the major basketball court. Practice basketball is usually used for gym classes, Volleyball is often green and runs the same way as the major basketball.

After these three games any additional games are done in pastel colors so as not to detract for the three major games on the floor. Badminton is usually done with one inch lines that are yellow for example.

One of the things you soon learn when painting lines is not to step on the wet lines. I still step over lines when I go to a basketball game.