Hi,
I just bought a 100 year old home where the previous iod***(owners) painted all the 100 year old wood. As far as I can tell there are two-three layers of paint on the wood.
My question is: Can I run this throught my planner to remove the old wood? I have read other places that you can, but wanted to put it out there for discussion. I think I would rather spend the money to buy/sharpen the blades, than use the chemicals and much extra time.
Thanks for your input.
Steve
Replies
a 100 year old home...
Planner.. REALLY old wood HAS to have lead there.. I would do it cus I'm old and all used up by now, but if you a 'yungin' or children in that house, I'd think twice about it...
Maybe mist the area and take the wood off and do it out in the barn or something.. Not in the house.. I'm NO expert on Lead, geee.... me and my brother played with it ALL the time when I was a kid.. Guess I was lucky..
Hi Steve,
Besides the obvious lead danger, that another poster has pointed out.. Paint is awful abrasive to cutters and would likely put a whooping on your planner knives in short order, not to mention the danger of hitting any nails..
Best of luck
Edited 1/28/2005 12:26 pm ET by BOBABEUI
Lead is definitely a possibility, and you don't want to be pulverizing it. You can test for lead, but different rooms will have different paints so you will have to test repeatedly. I believe there is a swab test that you can use, so you don't have to send samples to a lab, but I don't know how accurate they are and the cost could add up quickly.
Even without lead in the dust, the other components in paint still present a risk so dust control and good respirators will be a necessity. If you miss identifying some of the paint as containing lead and do get it in the air by planing, you'll have a fairly serious exposure and clean up problem, personally I don't think it is worth the risk.
In my experience old paint will destroy steel blades within minutes, and there is also a fair chance that you will run into nails hidden under the paint. To be practical at all you'll have to use carbide blades for paint removal if they are available for the machine you have. I don't know of anyone offering carbide blades for the benchtop planers. Most of the hand held power planers use carbide blades so they might be the way to go.
They make a special power tool for stripping paint off of exterior siding with a carbide cutter head of some sort. It might be usable for interior trim but I don't know much about the tool, I expect that it will be too crude for what you are trying to achieve.
You can take off the trim and send it out to have a commercial stripper remove the paint, I think this is the usual way of dealing with old paint and is probably the best way to go.
John W.
Edited 1/28/2005 12:45 pm ET by JohnW
Steve-
I asked a very similar question over on the Breaktime board when I was contemplating reviving some old lap siding caked in paint. The best response I got over there was "I can't think of a better way to ruin a planer." I went another route (took the siding to a building materials resale shop and used fiber cement).
In your case, you may be able to use a heat gun and some elbow grease so as to minimize the amount of chemical stripping you have to do. Do wear a NIOSH approved respirator for lead. And do the work outside of the home.
One last thing, I, too have an old house with painted trim and was not looking forward to stripping all that paint. However, in talking to an architectural historian, I found out that at the time our house was built (1925), it was very common to use pine rather than hardwood and paint the trim. So the paint is actually "period". We've decided to keep it that way.
Cheers,
Jason
use chemical stripper, one room at a time. Using a less odorous stripper like the citrus orange works well indoors, or if you remove the trim you can use a stronger solvent outside. I'm not a fan of planing old trim. If you strip it carefully, you may be able to retain the aged patina of the outer layer of wood. Planing (and sanding for that matter) will obviously remove the patina.
Find a furniture refinisher with a dip tank and negotiate a deal with them assuming that a test run of a piece or two leaves you pleased with the results.
I bought my 100 year old house years ago and have been working on the woodwork ever since. We also have younger children so lead exposure is a concern. Finally, I am an environmental chemist - I've been working on chemical exposure issues for over 20 years.
Children get exposed to lead by injesting. Leaded paint chips get eaten by younger childer (they actually taste sweet). Children get dust on their hands and then put their hands in their mouthes. You must prevent your efforts from creating paint dust or chips that children could injest.
Here is a method I've used - it has worked well for me and it has protected our children well (we've had them tested for lead exposure multiple times).
Put down some damp news paper under your work area and remove the woodwork from the walls. Gently brush the wall surface to remove any loose debris and wash the wall area down with a mild warm water/vinegar solution. Do not vacuuum the area or walls until you have washed everything, removed the wood from the area and disposed of the newspaper. THE VACUUM IS THE WORST TOOL TO USE TRYING TO PREVENT LEAD EXPOSURE. Watch your feet - you can track lead dust all over the place if you are not careful.
Do this with a reasonable level of care and you won't cause a lead problem.
Others have already given you good advice about paint stripping. Here are a few strategies I have used.
Intricate mouldings are beatiful but they are a nuisance to strip and refinish. I actually found a millwork shop that reproduced my header and baseboard cap. Get some new stuff and finish it to match. It seems expensive but it will save you a lot of time.
The flat pieces can be safely sanded AFTER the paint residue is removed. I stripped some myself (using chemicals) and took some out to have it stripped. Either way it looks fantastic after you get it sanded. The feeling of pride and satifaction you get from reinstalling the rescued / renovated casework it incredible.
Get yourself a finish nailer and compressor. It will dramatically reduce the amount of time necessary to reinstall the woodwork. If you've got a whole house to do this is short money.
Also, if you refinish your baseboards get the electrical/telecom/video wiring done when the baseboards are off. This will also save a lot of money and result in a much better job.
In summary: Lead exposure is a serious issue/risk. Preventing lead exposure is not difficult. A little effort and common sense is all it takes to prevent the problem.
Future,
Please read this thread, and also search lead paint in Breaktime there are recent others.
-zen
http://forums.taunton.com/n/find/findRedir.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&mg=5BB70F3B-8F8F-47B1-895B-907B0622E731
I have used an old Ryobi portable planer to remove layers of old paint from boards. I can't see the problem as long as you're willing to get the blades sharpened when you're done, I wonder if one of those little metal detectors they sell for salvaging old wood would be sufficient to find the nails.
That being said, I would take all the comments about stripping lead paint very seriously.
Matt
I didn't have time to read the earlier posts, so I hope I'm not repeating something here. NOT a good idea. It isn't just the lead or whatever. I asked the same question a couple of years ago, and what was mentioned that I hadn't thought of: the heat of planing will soften the paint and gunk up your rollers, etc., something fierce!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Steve , how wide is the base? Base is probably the widest trim you have. Saw the paint off, run thru planer. Attach a scrap wood fence to your tablesaw fence.Carbide blade runs up into fence with 1/16" of blade exposed.You should be able to raise blade for at least a 3" rip on most 10" saws.Set up finger boards to keep boards flat against fence. Take appropiate precautions for lead paint dust. You will have to take two passes because of the width of the boards. Then you can run thru planer safely. Make sure you remove all nails before sawing.
mike
As a veteran of more 100 yr old houses then I care to count, I would like to offer the following: I have read the posts and I agree with dipping. Unless your trim is flat stock, you still won't be done when you are done destroying your planer. So further elbow grease is required. Either chemically strip yourself or have someone do it. If you can find someone who will dip it, even better. Since you are going to remove all of the trim anyway, this is the way to go. the planer will remove the paint, yes, but the likelyhood of you getting ALL of the nails is pretty low, that coupled with all of the lead dust, and you still need to address the details, its not worth it. IMHO.
Good Luck!
John
Edited 1/29/2005 11:36 am ET by JMartinsky
I'm going to second or third the mention of haveing the wood striped by a pro.
Also some one else mentioned that the wood may have been painted from day one. If thats the case maybe you dont want to see the wood!
I dont think I would start striping it with a heat gun or running it through your planner until you know if it has lead in it or not.
Another thing worth mentioning, if you take all the trim up mark it, get one of those cheap punch sets so you can identify it in some way so as to know where it goes when your all done.
Doug
Edited 1/28/2005 10:43 pm ET by Doug@es
Great idea on marking .. Why didden't I think of that???
I pulled all the trim out of my Victorian after getting WAY high on fumes trying to strip it in place. If your trim has a varnish layer, you can peel the paint off very easily with a decent heat gun because the varnish softens very quickly. Then the chemical stripping of the residual crap goes very quickly and you save on stripper. I marked the back of each piece for which room and wall it came from with a Sharpie permanent marker, which didn't wash off even with stripper and washing with detergent and hose afterward. I worked outdoors.
Sorry, but this doesn't work well unless you have the varnish 'slip' layer. Heat stripping paint laid directly on wood is just painful, and it never seems to really clean up out of the pores. Test one piece first.
I've planed painted wood to reuse for trim...once. It only takes one buried finishing nail to really mess up a set of blades. And don't even think of sending it through a drum sander!
I'm glad you mentioned the drum sander, I almost suggested it!John
I also have a 100+ year old house. When we started to gut the house we thought about saving all of the moldings also. We came to the conclusion that the moldings in our house were nothing "special". You have to remember that when people were building houses back then they used whatever materials were readily available to them. They didn't go and have a set of knives made by a blacksmith to use a special profile on your house. With that said, the moldings in your house were probably whatever they could get their hands on at the time. We wound up tearing all of it out and then getting new Red Oak moldings and putting those up. In the long run, it was cheaper to take down the old and just buy new molding than to remove the old and strip them.
Just my $.02
Dark Magneto
In addition to the physical / neurological dangers of dealing with Lead, it is also ILlegal to do the waste removal by yourself in many locals. Lead, like Asbestos, must be removed by Certified Professionals -- those trained in the proper methods of 1) getting the "stuff" off of your trim work and 2) disposing of the disposed "stuff".
There are some pretty stiff fines out to help avoid having someone take a bag of Lead Paint dust and filling up a sandbox with it -- or dumping it into a Water source.
I know that the way I said that sounds terrible, but that's why those laws were passed in the first place.-- Steve
Enjoy life & do well by it;
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