Hand Scraping a Wooden Floor

[Bill Haumann]

What hand tools would be best for hand scraping a wooden floor?
The floor in question is finished with poly, about thirty years old, oak, and has some board edges that may be 1/16 of an inch above its neighbor.

I'm thinking a plane for the protruding edges, a scraper plane (112 or L-N Large Scraper - I don't own either :-)), and something to get close to the walls. I haven't done this before, so no idea how suited these would be. . .

- Bill

[Patrick Tipton]

Stanley made a floor plane at one point. I forget the model number but they have a longer handle and I think were used standing.

I would run to your local big box store and rent a floor sander. If the floor is face nailed, set the nails and then keep the sander moving. I am not a big fan of the noise or the dust, but I don't see any benefit from planing in this case.

[Zach England]

What sort of square footage are we talking about here?

Unless the answer is "my master closet" then you are a first-order masochist.

[Craig Gates]

194529
Having a couple of friends might make the job go quicker. :)
Craig

[Prashun Patel]

Why would even the most Neander of the Neanders want to hand scrape a floor? That's going to kill your back. Scraping finish dulls tools pretty quickly, so there'll be a lot of sharpening/burnishing.

If yr just leery of kicking up the dust, there exist cyclonic floor sanders for rent. Just sayin'.

[geoff wood]

hand scraping floors its actually very common in the professional world, when you are redoing next to baseboard/casings its hard to get a sander into the next to them without scuffing them. id use a paint scraper not a card or cabinet scraper, then finish up with orbital sander on the main floor then hand sand the scraper marks.

[David Keller NC]

Bill - The best scraper is (drum roll please) - methylene chloride based paint stripper. Use a respirator, and open the windows to the room while you're doing it. There will be no residual chemical after airing it out for about 24 hours.

Failing that, and if you're really determined to do this by neander means, I'd use the Skraper by Jameel Abraham - it's solid carbide and will stand up to the job a heck of a lot better than a steel scraper blade.

[Mark Baldwin III]

If I was going to refinish my floors again, I would use a drum sander. The small areas next to the walls that the sander can't reach would be easy enough by hand. I used an orbital when I did my floor a while back. Although they are nice, they can cause problems. For one, if you have to spot sand anywhere, it is hard to make it match up the pattern left by the sander. Secondly, if the slightest piece of junk makes it under the pad, you are left with little curly traces in your floor. These little flaws like to hide until finishing starts. Once finishing starts, you really don't want to try and sand out a spot and match your finish.
I second the paint stripper idea. If there is clear coat on your floor, the sander will just melt it and it will stick to the sanding pad/drum.

[Jon van der Linden]

Like has been said, you can do all this by hand, but expect to spend days on your hands and knees.

Professional modern floor sanding equipment is very fast and effective (not talking about the junk you can rent). There are also small sanders specifically for sanding along walls etc., but all of these require some level of skill to remove just enough material and no more.

Having done both... the former is very satisfying if you have time and someone to give you a massage afterwards... if not, the expensive modern sanding equipment (mostly European) is really nice and fast. It produces a lot less airborne dust than the older sanding systems.

[Halgeir Wold]

First - thank you guys.. this is very good forum, which I usually visit a couple of times a week - being located i northern Europe, a lot of the stuff referred to here is out of reach to me, not to mention all that beautiful wood you guys have over there.. ( sigh)...still very interesting to read some of the subjects and threads..

Anyway - to the subject - strange world this is - Over here , next after boom lifts and heavy drill hammers and chiselers, large drum floor sanders are probably the most common rental tool in my area. The more common size living room here being some 400-600 sqft, hand sandig, - except for matting down for proper adhesion, most people concider this out of the question.
That said - I've actually once scraped my 50sq.mts. living room with regular cabinet scrapers, but not for levelling, only to remove the disaster of a misguided lacquer job, based on advice from the manufacturer! Took me some 6-7 hrs to finish!

[Scott MacLEOD2]

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?cat=1,310&p=45784

Me, I'd use something like this. Lee valley makes the current ones but there's all kinds of antique models out there from a variety of manufacturers.

You can put pressure on, angle them and it's not going to burn out your thumbs.

But what do I know.

Scott

[Bill Haumann]

Thanks for the replies and information.
I will be starting with a small area sometime this summer and we'll see how it goes.

- Bill