Planer on Painted Wood

[Herb Smith]

I have a Steel City 13" Planer (40300H) with Helical Cutter Head. The endless restoration of our 1920 bungalow has resulted in the accumulation of quite a bit of painted wood - mostly Douglas Fir. I'd like to use the planer to remove the paint but wonder if I might damage it by doing so. Your thoughts?

[Steve Kohn]

I'd be more concerned about the lead dust that might result. Have you tested the paint for lead content?

[Herb Smith]

I'd be more concerned about the lead dust that might result. Have you tested the paint for lead content?

No, but my vac would be hooked up to the machine. Not sure what's involved in testing for lead.

[Bruce Page]

The planner couldn’t care less if there is paint on the board. I have done it many times.
Do not do this if there is a potential lead issue on your 1920 bungalow.

[Art Mann]

In answer to your original question, some paints will absolutely wreck the edge of high speed steel planer blades in short order. I know from unfortunate personal experience. Your cutter head may have carbide knives which would hold up better but even so I would hesitate to use a planer to remove paint again. Steve's concern about lead is also well founded. Even with a good dust collector in place, I would still take precautions in an enclosed area like providing forced air ventilation and using a quality respirator. If you have a band saw, you might consider ripping the paint off while taking a thin sliver of wood with it.

Edit: Sorry to disagree Bruce but I had a very bad experience trying to plane latex house paint off some Western Cedar 4X4 posts. These posts were once used to hold up my front porch and had never been in the dirt. Cedar is usually about the easiest wood you could imagine to plane. New knives on the planer. I cut 2 nine foot posts down to 3-1/4" from 3-1/2" square and the blades were done for. They weren't nicked up - they were just plain dull.

[Bruce Page]

Art, I should have said that my experience was with milk paint and oil based enamel. I did not see any adverse signs of wear at all.

[steven taggart]

I plane a lot of wood with paint on it. But it only goes through my lunchbox porter-cable with cheap replacement blades. They dont last long. But some of the wood is beautiful under the paint. So I keep doing it. I use the cheap hardware store lead test kits on every batch first. Lead isn't something to play around with.

[Jeff Duncan]

Paint will dull the knives, carbide will last longer, but they'll still dull. You also have to be careful for stuff "hiding" under the pant. With reclaimed wood you never know what you'll find in there. But as far as damaging the planer, no you won't damage it. You'll just use up some knives. Of course if it's good quality DF under there than it may be worth it:rolleyes:

good luck,
JeffD

[Ellen Benkin]

You can get a kit from HD that will test for lead paint. I think it's sold in the paint department.

[Loren Woirhaye]

Another approach is to get a lot of the paint off with a cup brush wheel on an angle grinder prior to planing. I've removed paint with hand planes as well.

[Stephen Musial]

It's not a question of "if" your house has lead paint. If it was built before 1970, it definitely does unless everything is varnished.

Cost out the difference between replacing the cutterheads (you'll probably burn through an entire side) vs having the pieces dipped and stripped.

[Jason Roehl]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-based_paint_in_the_United_States

An excerpt, which jives with what I remember from my Lead Safe Work Practices class:


The home's year of construction can be a clue as to the likelihood that lead is present in its paint. As of April 2011, 87% of homes built before 1940 contain at least some lead paint, homes built between 1940 and 1960 have a 69% chance of containing such paint, homes built between 1960 and 1978 have a 24% chance of containing lead paint, while homes built after 1978 are unlikely to have lead-based paint.[18] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-based_paint_in_the_United_States#cite_note-18) The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control performs regular studies of housing-based health hazards in the U.S.

Likely? Yes. Certainty? No.

[Patrick Grady]

My 1906 house has lead me to consider this issue. Blade dulling or not, any machining process that puts lead dust into the air is not good - the lead ends up on your lawn or in whatever dust collection you have. High RPM tooling that creates dust is the first thumbs down. Hand planing or resawing below paint level or chemicals or hauling the wood to the dump and throwing the toxicity elsewhere are all choices this dilemma presents. I have some wonderful old-grained yellow pine flooring topped in 1940's porch grey paint. This flooring screams, "save me" every time I can't find a solution. Maybe a powerful low RPM planning machine. Obviously the timber and paint industries wouldn't have funded any research. But what surprises me is the dearth of public solutions regarding this pervasive problem. Maybe my porch-wood is coated with a grey radioactive color and there are no reclamation solutions. But even so, this is a health and environment issue and that we are still asking questions regarding decades of residential paint toxicity makes me wonder who is 'saving us'.

[Jim Andrew]

I remodeled an old house once, my mil left it to my wife, and the wife rented it until it was trashed. So I gutted the thing, threw away everything and went back with new woodwork, cabinets, basically everything. Added a bath and closets, new wiring and insulation. Replacement windows. Was a pretty nice house afterward.

[Phil Thien]

My 1906 house has lead me to consider this issue. Blade dulling or not, any machining process that puts lead dust into the air is not good - the lead ends up on your lawn or in whatever dust collection you have.

^^^ This.

The original poster maybe should look into an infrared paint stripper. These work pretty fast and don't stir up a lot of dust. You can find them for about $100, I think.