Buying a Cheap Lunchbox Planer to Strip Wood

[Kris Cook]

I am pulling up the DF floors in the living room of our 110 year-old home. A lot of the wood is hacked up but I am thinking I can save about 200 SF of it. I am considering buying a cheap planer to strip the finish off the wood. It is worth it to me to be able to put this wood to use. The wood is clear vertical grain

Has anyone done this? Wondering if the planer would hold up long enough to finish the job.

Would probably do it outside or figure out some way to catch the shavings.

[Paul F Franklin]

The harbor Freight planer is $$350 or so, so you'd be paying a couple bucks a square foot for the lumber, plus your time... I'm sure it would do the job, although with old flooring you're likely to nick the knives, maybe a few times so you might end up needing a few sets of knives. Then you might be able to sell the planer and recoup some of that cost. Maybe you could find a used one.

You could use a hand held power plane and do it for less money and more time.

You have to worry about lead in old finishes. Old paint will have it for sure, and even clear varnish can have it. You could use a lead test kit to check. If lead is in the finish, I wouldn't mess with it personally.

Old lumber can be beautiful but no guarantee. It's your call to make.

[Mel Fulks]

Lot of shops run painted dirty wood only when the knives are dull and knicked. We ran them on highest speed as that makes the knives
hold up better. Then the rough planed stuff was planed with newly sharpened knives. Slow feed makes the knives dull quickly.

[Rick Potter]

If you decide to do that, I would suggest you get a planer with knives you don't have to adjust. That way you can sharpen the disposables at least once quickly, and get it back to work.

[Justin Rapp]

Try and find a used 734 dewalt on marketplace or craigslist. If you need to replace the knives mid-way, they are like 40 or 50 bux. When done, sell the until and you've maybe spent 50 bux on a set of knives. I'd also sell it with a new set of knives installed so the new owner is happy with their purchase.

[Michael Elliott]

You can use a bench top planer, but you'll have to baby it. Very shallow cuts.

[Curt Harms]

I doubt the machine would suffer, you be removing as little wood as you could manage. The knives on the other hand ... Two passes would probably be a good idea. First pass with beat up knives to get most of the finish off, second pass with new knives for a good surface. It goes without saying but beware of metal.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I suggest a DeWalt 734.
The blades are super easy to switch around and/or replace.

They seldom come up for sale used - but - if you don't plan on keeping the planer anyhow, that shouldn't be a problem.

The cheaper ones (Porter Cable, Wen (which BTW - has a fairly decent price tag on one with a helical head), Harbor Freight, Etc) would work also & you could probably sell it after you're done - however - you'll probably sell the DeWalt faster & recoup moreof your initial investment.

[Ron Citerone]

Unless the wood is something special, I wouldn’t do it. I would save it and use it somehow though.
If you decide to do it the advice others have posted sounds good to me.

[Bob Falk]

FWIW, during my career as a research engineer (USDA Forest Products Lab), we did a study with the DOD on the feasibility of removing paint from painted wood siding from Army barracks (the Army had millions of BF). Our conclusion was that you can do it, but the planer knives dull quickly. This is due to the solids in the paint as well as grit between multiple paintings. I would assume planing wood flooring would be similar as grit is ground into flooring. Be prepared to sharpen your knives a few times. Here are a couple links if you want more detail:

https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/products/publications/specific_pub.php?posting_id=14336&header_id=p

We addressed knife wear in the following article:

https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/products/publications/specific_pub.php?posting_id=14351&header_id=p

Also, I would do a lead test on the finish. My 1920's home had 0.2% Pb in the floor varnish. Most people don't realize that old varnish can have lead in it.

[Kris Cook]

OK. I will take all of these helpful suggestions in account.

Thanks everyone

Looks like I will be able to salvage closer to 250 SF

Pulling up 16' CVG Fir boards...

[jack dempsey]

Would using an overhead sander work, it may be easier to change paper and grits. Jack

[Jim Dwight]

If you want to reuse it as flooring, planning it won't help much. It would be better just to install it and then sand it. With coarse paper in a drum sander it won't matter that it has finish on it, the sander will go through the finish in seconds. It will go through the flooring too in not very many seconds if you leave it in one place.

If you want to reuse it as lumber, planning it may help but really only if it is not back cut like current flooring is. You might get 1/2 inch of usable lumber out of 3/4 inch flooring. I'm not sure it is worth the effort. Unless you need 1/2 inch lumber.

You may want to figure in a set of knives if you are using the kind of planner whose knives cannot be sharpened. One of the reasons I still use my AP-10 is it is pretty easy to resharpen and use the knives again. It is not a great planner, it snipes and doesn't maintain thickness real well, but it was cheap ($100) and it has stayed cheap since the knives can be resharpened. Finish is harder on knives than wood is and sometimes it also builds up on them.

[Kris Cook]

I wish I could justify an overhead sander for this project.

The back is not relieved, so I will get full thickness (minus material removed with the plane). I don't plan on using it for flooring. Currently have 400 SF of WO sitting in the heated front porch acclimating for the last 2 weeks.

I am thinking:

- Face frames for cabinets
- Wainscot
- Picture frames
- Whatever else I can think of

I need to get this lumber stored and was a little concerned about one side being sealed (maybe less of a worry with vertical grain lumber but would hate to see it start cupping) so I went to town and got a HF planer. With 20% discount it was $288. Also got a hand-wand metal detector.

Here is the first piece through the planer

[Robert London]

Nice straight grain. I’m sure you’ll find some use for it.

[Jack Frederick]

I think I’d get it into storage and clean up as necessary for projects. No front end cost and for each project it won’t take long to get it ready to go.

[lowell holmes]

I bought a DW 734 from Home Depot and It does everything I need.

[lowell holmes]

I have that planer and it takes care of my needs. Lowes and Home Depot sell it.

[David Utterback]

You could use one side of the planer for the 1st pass and finish the surface on the other end of the blades,

[Mark Bolton]

Sorry if already suggested but maybe you could find a shop locally with a wide belt to run the material for you. You'd be far better off and left with a pretty much useable surface coming out of a sander. As others have said, your going to get pretty much nothing for yield out of a set of knives running that material through a planer. Then as they go away you will wind up shoving material through because the knives will go away so fast and once you start doing that you have knives that are pounding/crushing the wood fibers down instead of planing them away so you wind up having issues in finishing.

It may be worth searching around in your area even if its a bit of a hike to see if someone would be willing to run that batch of material. It will be a costly pain in the butt with any planer much less a small portable planer.

[Ron Citerone]

I wish I could justify an overhead sander for this project.

The back is not relieved, so I will get full thickness (minus material removed with the plane). I don't plan on using it for flooring. Currently have 400 SF of WO sitting in the heated front porch acclimating for the last 2 weeks.

I am thinking:

- Face frames for cabinets
- Wainscot
- Picture frames
- Whatever else I can think of

I need to get this lumber stored and was a little concerned about one side being sealed (maybe less of a worry with vertical grain lumber but would hate to see it start cupping) so I went to town and got a HF planer. With 20% discount it was $288. Also got a hand-wand metal detector.

Here is the first piece through the planer

That is nice looking stuff right there. Hope things work out for you Kris!

[Jim Dwight]

Glad it is working out for you.

[johnny means]

Plus 1 on finding a shop with a wide belt. I could strip that off in 30 minutes for less than the cost of a set of ruined knives. Don't forget to factor in the cost of a metal detector, if you don't have one

[Herbert Flower]

+ ! for installing it first. You'll surely have to sand again once you put it down, so save thickness with one procedure. Looks nice by the way.