I have about 300 sq. feet of used 7/8" thick 6" cedar box car siding that I intend to mill down to 4" tongue and groove for a ceiling in an addition. This siding has opaque stain on it. I intend to plane the unfinished rough side of the boards but was wondering if a single trip through the jointer (~1/16 off) for the finished side to smooth them up for their trip through the planer would destroy the jointer blades.
App
Why put them through the jointer if you're going to plane them anyway? Unless they've got twist (scrap that board) a thickness planer is fine for preparing both sides.
You'll put some wear on the planer blades certainly. Not so much the finish, more likely the embedded dirt and grit. I keep my last set of planer blades around for jobs like this. Then I might put the good blades back on for the last pass.
They make jointer and planer blades replaceable for a reason. They are expendable tools. Anything you send through a jointer or planer damages the blades. Some things at a faster rate then others.
A stain probably isn't going to be any worse on the blades then bare wood but even if it were, if the job has to be done what difference does it make if it dulls the blades. To paraphrase, a jointer's got to do what a jointer's got to do.
Make sure that you set the planner/jointer to cut deep enough to cut through the finish and not a shallow cut that will buff the edge off the blades by cutting only in the finish.
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