Painted wood/thickness planer

[akmanty]

Will running painted wood through a thickness planer dull the blades?

[RonB]

I personally, would not do it. I don't know about dulling, but gumming would be a concern. A bigger concern is nails or screws you cannot see because of the paint.

RonB

[akmanty]

Thanks, kind of thought so; just wanted another opinion

[dpb]

What kind of paint and how much? Latex, no problem at all to speak of. Very heavy coats of old enamel can be pretty tough on steel blades.

I use carbide knives in a small industrial planer (not a typical lunchbox portable that are now the rage) and don't much worry about it and reclaim a lot of material. I don't know much about how sturdy the knives are in those...

[Doug Miller]

Yes. Plan on buying a new set of blades afterward.

[The Daring Dufas]

That's what magnets are for. A simple old fashioned stud finder that utilizes a magnet is a wonderful tool for checking a piece of painted lumber before you put a saw to it. :-)

TDD

[Robert Green]

Not quite so helpful with brass or stainless screws!

-- Bobby G.

[The Daring Dufas]

I used to slice through metal, mostly aluminum, using a chop saw tipped with carbide teeth. It would slice through brass quite easily but I know stainless stuff comes in varying degrees of hardness. I would have to do a little research to find out hardness vs magnetic properties of stainless steel. It seems that every time I use stainless screws in wood, the darn things break on me if I'm not very careful. ^_^

TDD

[HerHusband]

Running painted boards through the planer will dull and nick the blades. It will also eject paint chips so you don't want to have the planer connected to your dust collection if you use your shavings for composting, gardening, etc.

When I want to recycle old painted lumber, I usually use the tablesaw or bandsaw to trim off the painted edge. Then I can plane the lumber as usual. Obviously, the wood needs to be thick enough to have salvageable lumber when you are finished trimming and planing.

Of course, you should use a metal detector of some type to check for nails or other metal objects before you send the lumber through your power tools.

Anthony

[dpb]

...

...

Again, depends on what kind of and how much paint...a coat or two of interior latex, I'd not worry a lick (either on the planer nor the composting, etc.). 20 coats of an old oil-based enamel, that's something else.

Still, for a quantity of good lumber, even the cost of a set of replacement knives isn't necessarily much to pay as compared to what one might have to give for the same quantity of similar quality lumber (particularly if it is old, you might even have trouble finding anything of such quality today, anyway).

All in all, I'd say whether it's a good idea or not depends on far more than is known of OPs situation as far as whether he'd be ahead or behind in the end.

As noted, I do such routinely w/ carbide knives on the planer; I keep an old set of jointer knives specifically for such rough work there; w/ one of these lunchbox planers I'd probably do the same; they're not that expensive.

Alternative but slower is, of course, to use the belt sander w/ 20-30 grit belts to scuff off the worst before planing.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"HerHusband" wrote

If the wood is very old, be careful about lead paint. You don't want to be making lead dust.

In any case, it will damage the blades.

[ed_h]

Yes, but so does running unpainted wood through a planer.

Whether paint would make much difference obviously depends on the paint and how thick it was. Even if there were a detectable difference, it still might be worth it, depending on what alternatives you have.

[Robert Green]

non-stainless

I might end up cutting a hole in the other tray to make it into a shallow sink. I burned out a Sabre(tm) saw trying to cut through it with metal cutting blades. This was in the 70's before the internet. If I decide to cut the tray (not doing any 30" by 40" color printing anymore) I'll come back and ask some specifics. I don't recall using any cutting oil (although I should have remembered from machine shop) but I will do it the next time. These are two hand-made stainless trays made to do large photo prints in trays. It's pretty thick and has rolled over and tacked edges. Even rounded corners. Obviously the dude that made them had access to some pretty serious metal-shaping tools. Very heavy. I'll have to take my calipers to them. (Just got up to do that, and instead but instead tackled a stain on the kitchen wall a little too aggressively and now the old yellow color is showing through the white. Fortunately I had poured the last of the kitchen paint into a soda bottle that I can squeeze to keep the air out. It's worked for 8 years now without the paint drying out. I think that was a tip I got from the painting guy on This Old House - whose name has just gone blank - Tommy! There it is. DiSilva?

OK - just discovered my nifty new HF electronic calipers will NOT read around the rolled edges and my stinkin' BIL has my Dad's Brown & Sharpe micrometer which could have measured around the hump. I guess I've got to get a new mike. )-: Using button magnet and the zero feature I get 2mm but that's with a lot of slop. Oh well, now I have an excuse to visit Harbor Freight to buy more tools I'll probably use only once like a self-igniting propane torch for burning weeds and melting ice off stairs.

I got them from the guy who had the Jag V-12. He wasn't going to have time to do any darkroom work keeping that thing going. It was the most complicated set of mechanical cross-linkages I've ever seen in a car. When it was in tune, there was no noise or vibration coming from it. Only heat. When it was in tune (and that wasn't very often). Can't say that for my little four-banger Honda that's still going after 21 years. Today is snake the sunroof drain holes day. A real Achilles' heel for the Prelude. Bad, bad, bad design - almost unreachable without major disassembly but fortunately someone in the Honda group designed a little air compressor adapter out of some surgical tubing and a Bic pen that makes the job doable if you remember to slowly ramp up the air pressure instead of blasting

120psi into it to start with.

Thanks for the tip. I never cut any stainless after that first disaster where I finally had to drill holes all around the circle line - small bit, larger bit and then the sabre saw to cut between the holes. I even bought a hole saw alleged to cut metal (maybe aluminum). It scuffed up the surface and make a good guide line to drill the punch-out holes. The only time we worked with hardened steel in machine shop was when we had to grind tool bits for the overhead belt-driven lathes stamped "Property of War Department" that still had faded labels that said "Loose Lips Sink Ships." I often wondered what was made with it before it got donated to our school . . .

-- Bobby G.

[Twayne]

YES, it will. Depending, as little as 10 footer can dull them. Nicking can occur too.