[Callers] Sticky floors

[Donna Hunt via Callers]

We often use cornmeal on our floors to increase slide.  Unfortunately the floor is not usually clean when we apply to cornmeal and some dancers have complained of "build up" on the soles of their suede shoes (this doesn not seem to be a problem with dance sneakers with hard plastic soles.  Even with the "build up" I usually have no trouble sliding and using a wire brush and scraper takes the "build up" off the suede soles.

We use a "Parmesan cheese shaker" with adjustable holes in the top, to apply the cornmeal.  Works great and we try to only sprinkle a little at a time and then a second time if we need to.


Donna Hunt
Web Site:  donnahuntcaller.com
Email: dhuntdancer at aol.com




 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: James Saxe via Callers <callers at lists.sharedweight.net>
To: callers <callers at sharedweight.net>
Sent: Tue, Jul 21, 2015 5:50 pm
Subject: Re: [Callers] Sticky floors


In my recent message about negatives of applying wax to a
slow floor, I
wrote:

> ...
> Note also that wax, unlike, say, corn meal, will not easily
be
> removed by sweeping at the end of the evening.


As it happens, while
looking for something else, I just came
across a 2013 thread on the
trad-dance-callers list where
someone mentioned corn meal and another list
member replied
with a cautionary tale about a local dance series that ...

>
... had to temporary relocate, and settled in a church basement which had a tile
floor. The caller sprinkled corn meal over the floor in hopes of improving it
since it had been waxed.
> As the evening progressed, the crowded
unairconditioned hall became quite hot & humid and the cornmeal grains absorbed
the moisture, softening and sticking to the floor.
> It couldn't be swept off
after the dance. It had to be laboriously *scraped* off by the custodian on
hands & knees.
> 
> The dance was evicted from the church, never allowed to
return.

I'm not sure why the experience reported here differs from
what I've
seen with corn meal.  Was it the humidity?  Was it
something about the
underlying floor or about what had been
done to it before the corn meal was
added.  (For example, had
it not been well cleaned after an event the previous
evening
where people had dropped food and spilled sugary drinks?)
Was it
something about the kind of corn meal? Was it really
corn starch?  BUt I
thought I should pass along the
report.

--Jim

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