Thread: Running painted wood through the jointer/thicknesser?

Agree with many of the comments above but need to add most pigmented decking paints do not contain Titanium Dioxide but iron oxide colouring pigments along with quite abrasive fillers such as silica etc. I would either use a cheap hand planer or a quick pass by a saw blade before the thicknesser. I have also found feeding at an angle does help maintain uniform wear on the cutters.
Cheers,
Paintman

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Why do you say this, I would have thought the carbide cutters would be ideal for this job because if the cutters suffer damage they can be rotated or have I missed something?

Originally Posted by Bernmc

My A3 has the straight bladed head (although I'm looking into getting hold of the spiral at some point). Like Chris, I'd have thought that the spiral would be a better tool for this job - one little blade to replace each time it's used to locate a nail, and they're easy to rotate as they get blunt?

I like the handheld idea too - I have an old Festool and a bosch, so SWTSMBO can get stuck in too.

To be honest I would pass on the whole exercise if it were me. Lots of shorts once the nail hole sections are removed & typical decking timbers aren't necessarily good or even fair cabinet timbers. The carbide may well handle nails better than HSS however if one of the carbide cutters shatters its going to get interesting and expensive real fast. I doubt you would be lucky enough for only one cutter to be damaged with a nail strike.

You're unlikely to completely destroy a tip, the worst you'd do is lose a corner and the way the inserts sit on helical heads means it might not even matter. Worst case, there's still 2 good edges left. The only time I ever lost a tip entirely was when I missed tightening one after a rotation cycle.

Interesting, as about thirty minutes ago I have put about fifteen painted lining boards through my thicknesser to remove the paint and to detect defects, came in to re-hydrate and saw this thread. The boards are the 23mm thick wall boards used in Queensland primarily as the single skin as opposed to the 12mm boards used as part of the double skin in other states. I am using them for a "new" ledged and braced door for our outside toilet area.

The timber is cypress pine so a little more forgiving than hardwood decking timber and much of the paint was already flaking. I cut approximately 1mm off each side of the boards. This was so I did not have to worry about which was the right way around when I come to assemble them into a door. These boards are the same profile on each side unlike floorboards. The blades in the thicknesser have already done quite a bit work and are close to blunt to the point where I would be reluctant to put more than a board or two through if it was hardwood. The thicknesser coped fine. It would have been better if I had spotted the three nails missed when I de-nailed a couple of years ago, but that is life. I have a hand held metal detector, but my level of confidence that I had removed all the nails slightly outstripped the reality! Not to worry: I will just remove the chipped blades next time I sharpen the blades. If chipped thicknesser blades worried me I would have committed hari kari some years ago.

Clearly I was not putting a large quantity of material through the machine (95mm boards about 2.2m long). I think it helps to go through the paint into clean (apart from those nails) timber. My concern with using a hand held planer is keeping a uniform profile. I wanted to use the tongue and groove, but if you are only attempting to salvage board to become DAR then it may not be an issue. I would comment that pushing long boards across a jointer becomes fairly tedious and quite time consuming. If we are talking about any significant amount of material I think you will need a lot of time on your hands.

The easiest way I have found of just stripping paint is an angle grinder with a coarse sanding disc (40g).

2019-12-31 12_09_30-5_ 125mm Zirconia Fibre Sanding Discs for all metal _ Smith & ARROW.jpg

It is messy and you will need hearing protection, eye protection and a dust mask: Purgatory on our hot days.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bernmc

Any issues with running painted wood through the jointer and thicknesser?
Our deck is going to come down in the next few months - support structure is rotting. I’m hoping to recycle the boards and turn them into doors etc as we renovate - there might be some decent hardwood under the layer of green (ugh) paint.
There’s a lot of wood, so I’m thinking of running it all through the A3 to clean it up. It won’t be practical to strip it any other way.

What timber is the deck made from - treated pine, merbau, something else? If it is merbau imported from Indonesia or PNG it is almost certain that AQIS would have insisted that it be treated prior to importation. Would you want to breathe the dust from treated pine or merbau? And many treatments are invisible.

OTOH, I run a lot of salvaged timber through my thicknesser and use two sets of blades. The "sacrificial blades" are sharpened on a bench grinder and now have so many knicks that they are almost serrated - but they still work. Once I get to clean wood I change down to my smoother blades.


Cheers

Graeme

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

What timber is the deck made from - treated pine, merbau, something else? If it is merbau imported from Indonesia or PNG it is almost certain that AQIS would have insisted that it be treated prior to importation. Would you want to breathe the dust from treated pine or merbau? And many treatments are invisible.

No idea. It’s big and it’s green!

I have scuba gear though. And a big fan. Will have to build that clearvue before I get started I guess. I may look into borrowing a bit of respiratory safety for the job.

I’ll get a piece at some point, clean it up, and see if it’s all worth it.

Finished work a bit early today so I grabbed a piece of wood from the crumbling fence, and another from the deck screen, and cleaned them up. Comes up pretty well - the pictures make it look coarser than it is.

No idea how to ID it. Definitely recycle-able and re-usable. I think I'll try it for my workshop cabinet face frames.

pre and post front.jpg pre and post back.jpg fence wood.jpg screen wood.jpg closeup.jpg

Originally Posted by Bernmc

screen wood.jpg

That looks like radiata pine to me, probably treated, in which case I'd find the nearest rubbish bin because you don't even want to be handling it, much less making dust out of it.

There is no need to throw out the ones you've done. I wouldn't do anymore though.

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

That looks like radiata pine to me, probably treated, in which case I'd find the nearest rubbish bin because you don't even want to be handling it, much less making dust out of it.

I agree that it looks like treated pine but just wondering why you wouldn’t even want to be handling it?

Cheers Andrew

Originally Posted by AJ.

I agree that it looks like treated pine but just wondering why you wouldn’t even want to be handling it?

Because arsenic is nasty stuff and copper and chrome aren't much better
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/...treated-timber

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

Because arsenic is nasty stuff and copper and chrome aren't much better
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/...treated-timber

I presumed that would be your reasoning. In a previous life I managed a CCA treatment plant so I know a bit about it. The Arsenic is really not an issue, the amount of timber you would need to ingest before the Arsenic caused you an issue would mean the timber itself would kill you long before the Arsenic. Copper is commonly applied to fruits to stop disease, so again if you eat fruit, veggies or drink wine you will likely ingest far more copper from those things than handling treated pine. The Chrome is actually the dangerous part as it stays in your system for a lifetime, but once again you would need to ingest massive quantities to cause any real issue, the wood and wood dust is actually more of a health concern than the chemicals.

Burning it it is really the only thing to avoid, otherwise just use the same precautions as for any timber and you will be fine.

Cheers Andrew

Fair enough. For a few dollars worth of pine I'd rather not expose myself to anything I didn't have to, but to each their own

Auracaria, Or more commonly known in Australia as Hoop Pine. Looks to be discoloured which would mean it’s been LOSP treated. Nothing wrong with using it, I always give any surfaces to be glued a good wipe with acetone first though, just to etch them.

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Auracaria, Or more commonly known in Australia as Hoop Pine. Looks to be discoloured which would mean it’s been LOSP treated. Nothing wrong with using it, I always give any surfaces to be glued a good wipe with acetone first though, just to etch them.