Stripping a modern hardwood floor?

[Adam (UK Bargain Party Store]

Old "modern hardwood floor", thought it should be easy. Get drum sander, off I go. Except the sander hire person was kind enough to point out that the old varnish would "shine up" belt after belt, and I'd probably want to chemically strip it first.

And that's where I draw a blank! What's the right stuff? The only relevant result I get when googling is actually offline at the moment, but here's google's cache of the page:

that also seems to mention a drum sander. My DIY book and plenty of websites deal with the finishing once I've stripped the old stuff off, but it's the old stuff that's causing me headaches as to what to do!

[Andy Dingley]

It's not a problem and you can't chemically strip it.

"Varnishes" are easily dealt with by a coarse belt. The stuff that's tricky is the bituminous paint used as a dark border in the '30s, when there was a rug surrounded by a dark border. This stuff won't chemically strip anyway (OK, so there is a chemical stripper for it, I've used it once, won't do it again and I'm certainly not posting the recipe). Best bet is plenty of the very coarsest belts, working slowly to avoid overheating and cleaning the belts _before_ they glaze, using a rubber block. I'm also told a vibrating sideways scraper like a Fein Multimaster can be useful.