Replies

1. 
   philip_r | Apr 03, 2009 07:45pm | #1

   I'd check for hidden nails and ready to replace the blades if you hit something. 

   Personally, I'd try to strip it first and then clean them up with the planer.  A thickness sander would be better.

2. 
   mrbird90 | Apr 03, 2009 07:52pm | #2

   I make a lot of reproduction cabinets out of old (100 years) oak which has a finish on both sides and often I have to plane one side to get uniform thickness and the finish dulls the blade in no time. I think the finish is basically shellac or some early varnish. Last week I planed one small board that had some white paint on it in places and low and behold the paint made a bunch of nicks in the planer blades. My suggestion is to strip or sand all the paint off first unless you like changing blades.

3. 
   RickL | Apr 03, 2009 07:56pm | #3

   We do recycled lumber as a business. The planer will work fine, just check for nails with a metal detector and make sure you have good chip collection. Wear a respirator rated for lead dust unless you are 90 years old.   The sander is a bad idea as it will take forever and introduce a lot of dust. The thing to be aware of is paint before the 1978 legislation had a lot of lead so watch out for lead paint.

   You might be better off just buying new wood. Saving money can be more expensive in the long run if you aren't aware of the other issues. You don't want other family members, especially kids to breathe it.

1. 
   Tikhon | Apr 03, 2009 11:02pm | #5

   Thanks much. I know this is newer lumber, so lead shouldn't be a problem. And I do have good respiration protection and dust collection anyway.

1. 
   Tikhon | Apr 03, 2009 11:26pm | #6

   Meant to say thanks to ALL who replied.

1. 
   zolton | Apr 04, 2009 06:56pm | #8

   In my experience, planing or cutting lumber with paint on it is very hard on the tools used to do the work - the blades of those tools anyway.

   When refitting doors in an existing house for instance, one sometimes has to plane or remove paint along the edge of a door. Using a hand plane, this takes the edge off the blade almost immediately. It's best to use a paint scraper to remove the paint from the door's edge first before deploying the plane.

   So, the bottom line is that you're going to chew through a set of blades very quickly by using the planer on painted lumber. Paint is a tough, abrasive substance that dulls edge tools. If you can live with that, then go ahead with the planing. But expect to replace or have sharpened the planer's knives very much sooner than you would have to if you were planing clean wood..

   ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon

4. 
   Lataxe | Apr 03, 2009 09:17pm | #4

   Tikhon,

   I take paint and other such gunk off old planks with a portable electric planer set for a fine cut.  This basically reveals the wood by removing all the paint without taking much (if any) of the wood itself - sometimes a fraction of a millimetre maybe.  I whizz the machine over the plank very quickly - it's just to get the paint off not to flatten or smooth the surface.

   This reveals the surface of the wood, including any nail or screw heads that were not telegraphing through the paint.  Because the planer's footprint is small, it can follow the contours of the plank's surface more, which a large planer does not, of course.  (After all, it's a planer).  This means no big bites are taken, which bites may be the very place a Large Nail is hiding in.

   If there are nasty things in there, like a nail or something similary hard, taking just enough of  cut to remove paint means that any damage to the planer blades will be nil to slight.  Even so, it's worth looking for obvious nail heads under the paint or even running that metal detector over the planks, if you have one.

   If the blades are nicked or damaged, they are much easier and cheaper to replace with a portable electric planer than with a full size stationary one.  Also, the blades are usually TCT and a lot tougher than the HSS blades typically found in a stationary machine.  I've not yet replaced any blades in my portable planer although they do have a couple of nicks in them. 

   I've sometimes planed a fraction of a milimetre off the top of a nail but there has been no obvious damage to the TCT blades.  However, they wouldn't like modern case-hardened screws, which will cause even TCT to chip.  (I once wrote off a biscuit joiner blade when it hit such a screw).

   Once the planks are cleaned off like this, you can deal with any revealed, embedded nails or screws and proceed to plane/thickness the planks in the usual way, with a larger machine or even with hand planes, and be much more confident of causing no damage to their expensive blades from hidden nasties.

   Lataxe

5. 
   forestgirl | Apr 04, 2009 06:38am | #7

   Tikhon, the first lumber I ran through my Delta planer was very old oak from a dismantled white-painted cabinet.  It worked fine, but afterward, a couple of people mentioned to me that when removing pain this way, it's a good idea to not let the machine parts get too hot.  Visions of the paint being adhered to the rollers, etc. 

   I now keep a set or two of nicked blades around for uses that would be not-so-good for new blades.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)