Thread: Flooring for top

sander or wait till thickness blades need a chnage then run it through before sharping.

Could you lay them upside down? You may need to use your thicknesser to flatten out the bottom (usually T&G boards have a profiled base).

Better still, if you hvae enough, lay them on the side!

TP

Electric plane set for a fine cut. Blades for them are cheap or less than thicknesser blades. Paint stripper would be a messy chore.
Regards John

Some of the modern strippers are not so bad to use. Go to your local friendly paint supplier and have a look.

Thanks for the replies.
My plan is to make the top using these boards on edge, thus the need for laminating and the clean surfaces for said adhesive.
Luckily these boards dont have a bottom profile which will make gluing that bit easier.
I am certain that no matter what option i use its going to take a while. Not looking for a quick way to solve the problem rather an easier way

Shippers

Good Morning Shippers

60 metres of old flooring - chemical stripping could be rather expensive...

I like using recycled timber and have two sets of thicknesser blades - my "finish" set and the old set that I use on recycled stuff. These blades are badly chipped, roughly sharpened, and give a very poor finish - but they do get rid of that old surface and expose the timber underneath. All visible nails are, of course, removed but it is not a major disaster if I miss one. Remember, grit and dirt does almost as much damage to blades as nails.

Then I change blades and do a light pass with my "finishing" blades.

Fair Winds

Graeme

Some experimenting? ... maybe a belt-sander with a coarse grit P60 or P80 might rip into those boards ... ?

Building on a (weak and feeble) hand-tool intuition, I'd try it holding the sander at 45, 60 or 90 degrees to the direction of the board - like using a jack or scrub plane.

Then a finer grit afterwards ... or wipe them all down and use the thicknesser.

It could also be a job for one of the horrible modern Stanley planes with an unimportant blade in. Sharpened a bit off flat, used at 45 degrees to the board, and using a "L"- or "U"-shaped jig to hold them in place the surface would rough off quickly I suspect. It's only 60 x 1metre ... ... and it is free exercise. AND your sharpening might improve.

Cheers,
Paul

I am waiting to see what method you try. Do post before and after photos.

I had a quick play today with an electric planer. Have tried a ROS, various grades, took longer than anticipated.
The planer worked better than i thought. I think this may be the way to go
Pics coming soon.
Oh and to clarify the 60 odd meters is not lineal its SQM. thats the reason for the search for a quicker method.

Shippers

Originally Posted by SHIPPERS

Oh and to clarify the 60 odd meters is not lineal its SQM. thats the reason for the search for a quicker method.
Shippers

Well ... that's only 60 x 1m x 1m ... gulp ...

Simple! Lay it all back down as a floor and use a floor sander

Paul.

hindsight is a wonderful thing

I should have sanded the floor before taking up all the boards

Shoulda woulda coulda,

If you dont make mistakes you never learn.

I still think the planer is a good option

Shippers

Good Morning Shippers

If your flooring is a standard 19mm thick (3/4 inch), then depending on how much you shave off the surface, to get a "standard" bench width around 600mm then you would need 35 to 40 boards. If your bench is to be 2400mm long (8 ft) then this would require 8 square metres of your flooring. Why plane/strip/sand all 60 m2 at this stage?? Perhaps a belt sander with 40 grit is the starter - a vicious creature!

Also, I love salvaging Tas oak. As you know it is a mixture of three species - mountain ash, alpine ash and messmate. The messmate is the slightly darker, slightly harder, and slightly more attractive timber (IMHO). If you select the messmate from your flooring then you may get a slightly better bench top.

Fair Winds

Graeme

Originally Posted by pmcgee

....
Simple! Lay it all back down as a floor and use a floor sander....

Funny guy.

Originally Posted by SHIPPERS

hindsight is a wonderful thing

Next time you will know. Well actually everyone that now reads this thread knows.

another relatively quick method is to run it through a band saw on edge
set the width of cut to just take off the finish