removing glued down carpet padding from stairs

[miker]

The house I bought a while ago has the carpet and padding layed down on the floor with staples around the edges. Rolling it all up, staining, sanding and applying varathane took a while but it looks great. Now for the stairs. I see glue has been applied to the black padding under the carpet. I want to keep all the wood and go through the same procedure as I did with the floors. So far I have been working on one stair at a time. Ripping off the carpet, removing the edge staples, ripping up the padding and then using a chisel to remove the glue. The chisel is on an angle it does not damage the wood and does a good job of removing most of the mess. I use Goo Gone on the thick glue which does an ok job but im looking a a better chemical. Anyone know of anything that would work better?

miker

[miker]

The house I bought a while ago has the carpet and padding layed down on the floor with staples around the edges. Rolling it all up, staining, sanding and applying varathane took a while but it looks great. Now for the stairs. I see glue has been applied to the black padding under the carpet. I want to keep all the wood and go through the same procedure as I did with the floors. So far I have been working on one stair at a time. Ripping off the carpet, removing the edge staples, ripping up the padding and then using a chisel to remove the glue. The chisel is on an angle it does not damage the wood and does a good job of removing most of the mess. I use Goo Gone on the thick glue which does an ok job but im looking a a better chemical. Anyone know of anything that would work better?

miker

[Joe]

Your box store paint department has a selection of solvents that could be what you need. Xylene is a good one for rubber based adhesives. Most active is methylene chloride, the common componrnt of many paint strippers. 3M has some good proprietary solvent strippers also that would be worth trying. If you are lucky, you can bring home a box full of small cans of solvents, so don't blow big bucks until you're sure of which one works best. Good luck.

Jpe

[Meat Plow]

Hammer and chisel + elbow grease.