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How to clean up old tongue-and-groove flooring before reinstall?

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How to clean up old tongue-and-groove flooring before reinstall? mikep7777 09-03-2007
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Posted by on September 3, 2007, 8:34 pm
Does anyone have advice on the best way to clean up the tongues and
grooves on old hardwood flooring?

I'm redoing a bathroom in my house. The original maple T&G flooring,
which had been covered over in the 50's, was in pretty good shape,
however there were a couple areas with significant damage, and a
couple areas where the joints had separated. We decided to remove the
flooring, clean it up, install a new subfloor, and then reinstall the
maple.

I want to clean up the tongues and grooves before I reinstall the wood
so that we have relatively tight joints (I don't want/expect this to
look like a new floor, but I don't want 1/4" gaps.) The T&G edges of
the wood are caked with dirt that fell into the joints through the
years.

I was thinking of running the boards through a shaper to recut the
edges (after running it under a metal detector...), but I'm worried
that the dirt and grime will kill the cutter instantly. It's only
about 60 square feet of flooring.

Any idea if the shaper will work? Should I instead just use something
like TSP and a scrub brush to clean everything up? Any other ideas?

Thanks,
-Mike


Posted by dpb on September 3, 2007, 9:59 pm
mikep7777@gmail.com wrote:
> Does anyone have advice on the best way to clean up the tongues and
> grooves on old hardwood flooring?
>
...
> I want to clean up the tongues and grooves before I reinstall the wood
> so that we have relatively tight joints (I don't want/expect this to
> look like a new floor, but I don't want 1/4" gaps.) The T&G edges of
> the wood are caked with dirt that fell into the joints through the
> years.
>
> I was thinking of running the boards through a shaper to recut the
> edges (after running it under a metal detector...), but I'm worried
> that the dirt and grime will kill the cutter instantly. It's only
> about 60 square feet of flooring.
>
> Any idea if the shaper will work? Should I instead just use something
> like TSP and a scrub brush to clean everything up? Any other ideas?

Carbide would last for a while, but matching the original precisely
would be hard. My suggestion is wire brush in hand drill, holding the
flooring in a vise. For no more than you have, this won't be too bad at
all. Did much more than that from the old barn while doing the
restoration...

--

Posted by on September 3, 2007, 10:51 pm
mikep7777@gmail.com says...

> I was thinking of running the boards through a shaper to recut the
> edges (after running it under a metal detector...), but I'm worried
> that the dirt and grime will kill the cutter instantly. It's only
> about 60 square feet of flooring.

I'd cut a hand scraper to the appropriate profiles for the tongue and
groove. Cut it with a Dremel or hand files, scrape the length of the
boards, you'll clean the contact surfaces with a minimum of wood loss.

--
josh@phred.org is Joshua Putnam
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/>
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html>

Posted by Father Haskell on September 4, 2007, 12:12 am
On Sep 3, 8:34 pm, mikep7...@gmail.com wrote:
> Does anyone have advice on the best way to clean up the tongues and
> grooves on old hardwood flooring?
>
> I'm redoing a bathroom in my house. The original maple T&G flooring,
> which had been covered over in the 50's, was in pretty good shape,
> however there were a couple areas with significant damage, and a
> couple areas where the joints had separated. We decided to remove the
> flooring, clean it up, install a new subfloor, and then reinstall the
> maple.
>
> I want to clean up the tongues and grooves before I reinstall the wood
> so that we have relatively tight joints (I don't want/expect this to
> look like a new floor, but I don't want 1/4" gaps.) The T&G edges of
> the wood are caked with dirt that fell into the joints through the
> years.
>
> I was thinking of running the boards through a shaper to recut the
> edges (after running it under a metal detector...), but I'm worried
> that the dirt and grime will kill the cutter instantly. It's only
> about 60 square feet of flooring.
>
> Any idea if the shaper will work? Should I instead just use something
> like TSP and a scrub brush to clean everything up? Any other ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> -Mike

Blast the dirt out with an air compressor nozzle. Anything left
can be scraped clean with a utility knife.


Posted by dadiOH on September 4, 2007, 8:15 am
mikep7777@gmail.com wrote:
> Does anyone have advice on the best way to clean up the tongues and
> grooves on old hardwood flooring?
>
> I'm redoing a bathroom in my house. The original maple T&G
> flooring, which had been covered over in the 50's, was in pretty
> good shape, however there were a couple areas with significant
> damage, and a couple areas where the joints had separated. We
> decided to remove the flooring, clean it up, install a new
> subfloor, and then reinstall the maple.
>
> I want to clean up the tongues and grooves before I reinstall the
> wood so that we have relatively tight joints (I don't want/expect
> this to look like a new floor, but I don't want 1/4" gaps.) The
> T&G edges of the wood are caked with dirt that fell into the joints
> through the years.
>
> I was thinking of running the boards through a shaper to recut the
> edges (after running it under a metal detector...), but I'm worried
> that the dirt and grime will kill the cutter instantly. It's only
> about 60 square feet of flooring.
>
> Any idea if the shaper will work?

Not unless you have a special cutter. T&G flooring is NOT regular
T&G...the tongue does not go all the way into the groove and the area
below the T/G on adjacent pieces do not touch. Allows for
expansion/contraction.


--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico




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