Reducing thickness of reclaimed parquet flooring

[colinob123]

I have around 12 sq.m of reclaimed parquet flooring (pitch pine) with each board around 12" x 3" x 1". I want to reduce the thickness of this to something much less.

I'm intending to use the boards to lay a parquet floor over concrete. The concrete floor is level with existing parquet flooring in two adjoining rooms so I'd like to reduce the thickness of the boards before I lay them so that there is only a small height difference between the floors in the different rooms. An incidental benefit would be to remove the residual bitumen on the reclaimed wood.

What is the cheapest practical way of doing this and with what tool? I'm happy to rent something (thicknesser, band saw?) from HSS, or buy a cheap (=A3100'ish) tool for the job or get someone else to do it. Also, given that I'm laying on to a flat level surface, what is the minimum thickness people would recommend for the boards?

Thanks in advance!

Colin

[Stuart Noble]

I've been through this with a friend of mine who had a garage full of these things taken from the Bristol Corn Exchange IIRC.

The first thing to consider is that the boards almost certainly need to be standardised to, say, 11.75" x 2.75" to ensure that they are identical. Trying to lay a floor with slightly varying sizes would be frustrating in the extreme. This can be done easily on a sawbench, but 2 passes and 400+ boards is not trivial (and ideally you would trim all 4 edges, so double that figure).

You could also run them twice through a sawbench with the blade set to

1.5" height to reduce the thickness, say another 800 passes......, but the problem here is that pitch pine is very resinous and will gum up the teeth pretty quickly. You would also need to abandon all H&S guidelines by removing the guard and riving knife. Shock horror

A thicknesser would be good in theory but you may find the blade won't cope with the bitumen/pitch (and possibly the odd metal fixing?). The bandsaw is the logical answer in some ways but I don't have too much experience in that area so I'll keep quiet.

My friend decided to lay his as they were and I didn't have the heart to tell him how awful the end result was, or comment on the time it took.

[Phil L]

Either pay a professional parquet flooring contractor to come and do the floor with new blocks, or throw the ones you have in a skip and get a carpet, either way, make sure they all end up in a skip as they are more trouble than they are worth. Believe me, only heartache and many hundreds of wasted pounds lie down this road, and the result is always, always horrendous.

[Stuart Noble]

I wouldn't quite go that far, but variations in width, length, *and* thickness would make it too labour intensive to be justifiable on any grounds other than sentimental. The first two dimensions could probably be standardised by spending an 8 hour day on a sawbench, but the thicknesss is the killer.

[boltmail]

I've laid reclaimed parquet and it's turned out fantastically well - you have to buy it all from the same batch, but you'd have to be pretty naive or stupid to do otherwise.

[Stuart Noble]

Same batch doesn't mean a lot when it's been on the floor for 100 years and has shrunk to varying degrees. A mm or two variation would drive you crazy over a 12 sq.m surface

[boltmail]

Well, I've done one 60m2 and one 35m2 floor, and neither was a problem at all - it may have helped that these were stable tropical hardwoods (wenge and teak).

[harryagain]

Leave the bitumen on, you can get ahesives that glue to bitumen. Just glue them down and sand when in position (hire a floor sander). You will need a belt sander to do the bits close to the wall. Ideally put skirtings on after sanding.

These old blocks were all sanded after installation.

BTW, the bitumen may be the only damp proofing the floor has, so you need to think about what you will do in the hallway. You definitely have a problem if the blocks were lifting (in the hallway). Indicates damp coming up.

[gillbrown80]

Hi We have taken our hall parquet up and want to put it in the living room - we have loads so we know it wont be an issue of running out!

We are looking at using a thicknesser to run them all through - any recommendations on the best type to go for (and not cost the earth) to even them out and remove the bitumen? Many thanks

[Tim Watts]

I think a thicknesser is going to get gummed up by the bitumen.

[GB]

Screwfix do a Titan thicknesser for £150, but HSS will hire you one for about a third of that for a week. I'm not sure what happens if you burn it out and return it covered in bitumen?

-- and he isn't even cleaning the base up at all!

[Tim Watts]

I think you'd get a monster surcharge for having the machine stripped and cleaned!

An alternative idea:

Can teh OP do a rough clean (hand scrape), lay as is (the hot bitumen should bond to any residual left) and then sand the surface flat with a floor sander?

[fred]

He could keep the floor of the thicknesser well lubricated. There a various products on the market designed to ease the progress of highly resinated timbers through a thicknesser.

I'd be more worried about the length of them being a bit short to span the feed rollers.

He could make a carriage for them to allow them pass under the thicknesser. This is quite common if one wants to thickness very thin material. Sheet of 10mm ply with a low leading edge and low side walls and set the blocks into it.

[fred]

Whoops. Didn't see the o.p. wanted to remove the bitumen.I imagine that would have to be scraped off by hand after being softened with an appropriate substance. (Petrol? Might be exciting)

[Tricky Dicky]

I would be tempted to get a cheap table saw and set the fence to allow the blade to cut just below the level of the bitumen. This assumes the edges are fairly sound and not gummed up.

Richard

[stuart noble]

I think that would be my approach too. I'd set the blade depth to half the width of the parquet and do it in 2 passes. Yes, you'll have a slight ridge in the middle, but nothing significant, and it would enable you to hold on to the wood as it passes through the blade. Not something I'd enjoy doing myself, but I have done similar things in the past, and still have a full complement of fingers. As already mentioned, no blade will tolerate bitumen, it melts too readily

[meow2222]

Relay them with bitumen, no need to remove the old bitch. If you've got more than enough, no need to plane, just reject the uneven ones.

NT

[Capitol]

Band saw might be easier to control and waste less wood. Needs 1/2 inch blade to get a straight cut.

Alternatively white spirit will soften bitumen. However I'd heat and scrape first to reduce the amount of white spirit used. Maybe a vapour/spray bath might be feasible.

[Nick]

I had a similar conundrum 30+ years ago. Tongue & grooved Pitch pine blocks

9x3x1.5 inches. From a church that was being demolished. Laid in 1908, don't know what might have been used as adhesive. Black tarry stuff, possibly bitumen. All filthy dirty and some,little, traffic wear. The church had little roof left.

I made a sledge to hold 8 blocks at a time. This passed through the thicknesser to skim the adhesive off. Adhesive quite brittle and played havoc with the cutters. These were no tct cutters. Being brittle the stuff flew all over the workshop but did not adhere to the cutters. After all done repeated the process and planed the face to thickness. Made a couple of scrapers from old hacksaw blade to clean the t&g. This done by hand. Cleaned up 8000 blocks. Laid by a professional and it is superb to this day. In answer to your question (1) hire one or (2) find a local craftsman who is willing to have a go.

HTH Nick.

[GMM]

Wouldn't another approach be to reduce teh thickness from the top side and keep the bitumen as it shouldn't stop them sticking down? That way it doesn't gum up the cutter and it gives a nice 'new' finish to the blocks. Of course, the OP doesn't say how much they need to be reduced by, which is probably an important factor.....