i was using a heat gun to remove some ancient (at least 50-60 yrs) glue from a maple drafting table top that had a dilapidated paperboard cover on it at one time.
at first, i was melting the glue- with its remaining layer of paper- and going along with a wide dullish chisel to scrape the gooey crud off while hot. after doing a small section, i then went back over the remaining cooled residue with a cabinet scraper, hoping it wouldn’t still be too gummy. to my pleasant surprise, it crumbled off in a fine dust. so it occurred to me to stop trying to remove it when hot and gooey, just bake it with the heatgun, let it cool and scrape it all off with the chisel at once. it worked like a charm! apparently, the heat baked/cooked/ruined the adhesive in such a way as to render it unable to reassume a sticky state when cool, and it just disintegrated cleanly off the wood when scraped.
this might work refinishing some hardwood floors that have been covered over, too.
m
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Mitch, neat trick! When you say "heat gun" what kind of temps are we talking? I assume you don't mean wife's hair dryer.
i have a fairly expensive milwaukee with a digital thermostat (i usually use it for more particular stuff than stripping glue) and i was running it all out at 1100 degrees. under most conditions that would probably be too hot, but i was working in a cold garage, on cold wood and could watch the glue melt and swell under the paper as i went. i kept it moving along pretty quickly so as not to burn or scorch anything. it also worked on the varnished surfaces much the same way.
i imagine for getting flooring adhesive off concrete, one might even be able to use one of those big torches.
m
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