Concerns about planing old hardwood floors

[abram godshall]

a friend of mine has an old house with old hardwood floors. some of the boards are 18" wide. he wants me to plane them down to 7/8". other than removing all metal, what do i need to worry about? we do not know what they were finished with years ago. could it damage my planer blades? would i be better off putting them through my sander rather than the planer? they are 1" thick now. i was planning on taking off 1/16 from each side. any comments?

thank you, abram godshall

[Cary Falk]

Dirt, sand, and grit that might nick up your blades comes to mind. I don't know how big of a concern that really is though. I think I would try the sander first.

[John Bush]

Hi Abrom,
I have found it much quicker to use a belt sander on questionable reclaimed wood before planing. If the flooring is still ...uhh..flooring....., I would rent a floor sander and knock as much of the finish off as you can, then belt sand the flip side after removing it. A drum sander takes a lot more time for bulk removal. I did ~1200 sqft of old mahagony flooring this way and it worked well. JCN

[Lloyd McKinlay]

in recycling some old fir floors to another project. Went over them with a metal detector and then scrubbed and hosed them down outside to remove as much grit as possible. 300+ square feet and the new planer blades in my DW735 were shot. Actually the blades should have been changed about halfway through.

I took more than 1/8 off from the top of the 100 year old boards and still had low areas where I did not remove all the finish. Very uneven sanding at some point in their history.

[Chip Lindley]

While planing some old oak t&g flooring to reclaim it, I never nicked my planer blades, but I did put a nice groove in my RC33 planer table from one nail I failed to find on the underside. I sharpen my own planer blades when needed, so not an issue for *normal* dulling. But my good ol' Rockwell still wears part of that groove after I oil-stoned the table flat again.

Surface sanding would be tedious for more than a few board feet, but it's your call to run it thru the planer or not. If I had a metal detector at my disposal, I would do it the same way all over again. I had several hundred linear feet to resurface!

[Jeff Duncan]

Not sure what kind of planer you have, but my experience is similar to the others. I planed about 50 sq. ft. of old maple floors years ago and it will quickly destroy small planer blades. The dirt and junk is ground into the grain and very unlikely to be removed from just cleaning.
If you use a sander you'll also be using a lot of paper as it will be clogged quickly and frequently. make sure you take the costs of replacing into account befor getting into it.
good luck,
JeffD