how to removing carpet glue from wood...

[James]

Hi one and all,

I am currently renovating our open stairs in the cottage, in several places namely around the bottom starting step carpet has been stuck with a VERY strong glue, now having eventually removed the carpet, what is the best way to remove the glue from the wood, it is still fairly "tacky" I'm guessing that sanding will require the worlds supply of sandpaper, any other suggestions? I'd like to return the wood to a finish that I can varnish.

Thanks in advance

James

[Andy]

You could try a steamer with a nozzle on it. That'll soften it to the point where you can sape it off.

Andy.

[Rob Morley]

Depending on the type of glue try a hot air stripper with a flat scraper, some sort of solvent (white spirit, meths, acetone, lighter fuel) or Nitromors.

[Davide]

Hi one and all,

I am currently renovating our open stairs in the cottage, in severa places namely around the bottom starting step carpet has been stuck with VERY strong glue, now having eventually removed the carpet, what is the bes way to remove the glue from the wood, it is still fairly "tacky" I' guessing that sanding will require the worlds supply of sandpaper, any other suggestions? I'd like to return the wood to a finish that I ca varnish.

Thanks in advance

James

Whatever you do - don't sand if it's tacky. You'll just clog the sande (been there, done that). White spirit or petrol (or some other solvent may work - soak rags in the solvent, cover a relatively small area an put some plastic sheeting on top to avoid evaporation. Leave for a fe hours, then scrape

-- Davide

[Rob Morley]

I suppose we might have expected a DIY Banter contributor to advocate leaving petrol-soaked rags lying around the house ...

[Davide]

[color=blue]I suppose we might have expected a DIY Banter contributor t

advocate leaving petrol-soaked rags lying around the house ...[//color]

And I suppose we may expect someone like you to play with matche around them... no matter where you post from.

Aren't you the one that suggested using acetone? And you assume that i safer

-- Davide

[Stuart Noble]

A Nitromors type stripper is the only way afaik. Flooring adhesive usually has a pretty volatile solvent so won't respond to anything less. Similar to Gripfil I think.

[Rob Morley]

Why does that appear to be HTML? Where's the attribution, and indent to indicate quoting?

Do you really think that petrol vapour will only ignite if you purposely apply a flame to it?

I didn't say anything about leaving rags soaked in volatile and potentially explosive solvents lying around anywhere.

[Davide]

Taking your points in turn:

1. No, I do not think petrol will only ignite if you apply a nake flame to it, although you do need some form of energy applied to begi ignition (you choose - a laser beam, microwaves, electrical spark ..). If you choose to be sarcastic, expect sarcasm in return. FYI acetone has a lower ignition energy, and a lower vapour tension at 20 than isooctane. It also has a lower vapour density, facilitating mixin with air to form explosive mixtures.
2. Did I say anything about lying around? I said to leave the solven in contract with the adhesive for a time, not to leave it unsupervised Having just stripped three rooms (~70m2 / 770ft2) in my house in a ver similar situation to that described by the OP, I can assure you tha with some adhesives you either need huge quantities of solvents - whic is a risk in its own right, unless you hire air filtering equipment, o you need to leave them to soak for a long(ish) time. If you have a different, viable and safer suggestion for leaving (dangerous) solvent in contact with the adhesive for a sufficient time for the solvent t work, please let's hear it. I'd be glad to use it on the next floor!
3. The HTML appeared in the post because I edited it after posting an there seems to be a bug in the DYIbanter editing engine that interpret HTML tags as text in edited posts; if you don't like people postin using web-based engines, go read somewhere else that is only accessibl to people using "proper" newsreaders, or ask DIYbanter to close thei own site.

I don't think I can indent using the DIYbanter site - FYI, your quote do not appear as indented either, there. I try reasonably hard t follow threading and posting etiquette, but as the posting engine o DIYbanter produces what I find "unwieldy" quotes (see this post as a example), I try to snip as much as possible and quote other posters i different colours within the message; given the mess that others mak by not snipping, having incorrectly tagged/indented replies etc., I a finding this objection fairly picky. Do you have a suggestion for good newsreader

-- Davide

[Grumble]

The most common type of flooring adhesive is a water based rubber/resin emulsion and is cream/yellow in colour. If that is what you have then no solvent I know of will remove it. You're *stuck* with scraping I'm afraid. Once the water has evaporated and the adhesive has cured it cannot be re-emulsified and if applied correctly the bond is extremely strong. There has even been more than one occasion where we have pulled up carpets and strips of the floor have come up with it!

Grumble

[Rob Morley]

Where was the sarcasm?

Lots of people seem to make a mess of it - does that mean we should abandon the accepted standards, which have evolved to make the process work better?

I use Gravity and news.individual.net - does Banter not let you see that? If you insist on using a web-based interface why not use Google Groups? It's not perfect, but it has to be better than Banter.

[Davide]

Your original post "I suppose we might have expected a DIY Bante contributor to advocate leaving petrol-soaked rags lying around th house ..." sounded fairly sarcastic to me.

Thanks for the suggestion; will look for Gravity at the weekend - an no, banter does not let me see anything about where your (or anybod else's) messages come from - AFAIK; there may be some settings/profil bit that I have missed. You just show up as usenet poster

-- Davide

[Stuart Noble]

I've never come across anything that methylene chloride strippers won't shift

[Rob Morley]

It would have been sarcasm if I'd said "Hey, that's a great idea ..."

Gravity is here