Planing painted timber

[BobR]

When planing/thicknessing old painted timber how are people preparing the timber - or not? What damage can the paint do to the blades - dull them? I read somewhere where one woodie used a hand power plane to prepare any found timber prior to putting it through the planer/thicknesser.

[Gumby]

That's correct. Don't put it through your new machine. You will dull the blades. I use a cheapo Ozito (don't larf !) $35 plane from Bunnies for that stuff, then run it through the thicknesser to get it all even again.

[Dean]

As Gumby says or use a belt sander to get rid of the paint and grit.
Don't forget that really old stuff could have lead-based paint on it :(

[TassieKiwi]

Yeah - I use a bosch power planer (with a mask) to dice the old paint layers, before hooking in to the woodwork.

[KeithP]

What about varnish or furniture polish, I have some old dining chairs made of Tassie Oak which I want to salvage the wood from.

Pedro

[LineLefty]

I've spent the weekend cleaning up a load of old pergola timber that was painted mission brown. I've got a crappy chinese #4 handplane set up as a scrub plane (convex blade) and it strips the paint off in no time.

Hard work though!

[bitingmidge]

I have spent a goodly amount of time in the past with a belt sander, and since owning the drum sander have used that, which is easier but no quicker....from here on I'm going to use the Gumby method...

See when you can buy tools for less than the price of a good set of blades thery do have a purpose!

BTW I don't bother going to absolutely clean timber...just make sure that all the grit, nails and the bulk of the paint is off.

Cheers,

P :D