Reclaiming wood - stripping finish

[Trent Shirley]

Hi All.
I have an old Mahogony table I want to reclaim the wood from for projects. Is it OK to run cut planks from the table through my planer or across my jointer to strip the finish from the wood or should I be going the long route with some sort of liquid stripper and sanding?

If going the planer/jointer method would it be best to take shallow passes or heavier ones?

[Michael MacDonald]

I have been doing this with old 6-foot treads and risers from a staircase. My DW735 cannot handle the hardness of the oak, and the finish made the rollers spin on the wood... so I have been sanding with a belt sander first, ripping the boards to minimum needed width and then taking VERY shallow passes... probably the main consideration for you would be if the rollers can grip on the finish.

There was a discussion a few months ago on this. Some debate on whether finish would damage the blades... I took away the conclusion that finish would not damage the blades, but I don't think there was consensus.

[Frank Drew]

I think it's a question of how much time you want to devote to the task; planing (or face jointing) the finish off might be a bit harder on the blades than planing bare wood, but nothing that a sharpening won't fix.

Chemically stripping the boards would work to get them ready for machining, but it's pretty messy. I'd use this method if I wanted to preserve the table top in its full width, however.

Sanding a finish off quickly gums up your sanding media, in my experience.

[Stephen Cherry]

Sometimes an old finish will come right off with a scraper.

[Trent Shirley]

Good point on the grip of the feed rollers. A quick buzz with the belt sander should make it a bit better for grip.
I may decide to run the boards across the jointer though. If it ends up being hard on the blades or gumming them up then the jointer blades are less expensive and easier to clean.

The wood is 3/4" and I am going to rip it down to two 1/4" thick strips so maybe if I joint the unfinished bottom of the board first then rip two 1/4" strips on the table saw (I do not have a band saw yet) I may just get away with pulling the finish off with a hair thin layer of wood beneath all in one strip.

[Prashun Patel]

If you are deft with a card scraper, that can do a lot of the heavy lifting and will save gumming up yr planer blades. However, it does get tiring really quickly.

I'd use my planer after that. It's the quickest and yr boards will look like new.

[Trent Shirley]

The finish is way too thick for a card scraper, I would be there for weeks.
The table is old though so the finish may be hard enough to remove without gumming things up. I will cut a piece and use the table saw to plane off a bit and see how it goes. If it does not gum up the table saw blade it may be alright on the jointer or planer.

[Lee Schierer]

It depends on how much you like your planer/jointer blades. Cutting through finish will dull them quicker than cutting clean wood. Depending upon how much wood with finish you runt across the blades, you may end up replacing them or having to get them resharpened.

[Stephen Cherry]

The finish is way too thick for a card scraper, I would be there for weeks.
The table is old though so the finish may be hard enough to remove without gumming things up. I will cut a piece and use the table saw to plane off a bit and see how it goes. If it does not gum up the table saw blade it may be alright on the jointer or planer.

The scraper is, in my opinion, the first thing to try.

If the finish has broken down, sometimes it will fly right off, almost in a single scrape.

[johanes purnama]

Yes it is You can use the planner to strip of your paint.
But you need to make sure you cut deep enough.
Use the heavier one to get the fast result.

Good luck

Johannes