surface / thickness planer and/or jointer
 

Hey folks-

Some time ago I bought an antique wide plank pine floor that had been pulled from a house (was being replaced with laminate). It's finally time to get to this project.

I've decided to remove the couple of coats of poly which had been applied to the surface of the boards and re-finish it with Waterlox.

So... I will be acquiring a thickness planer and perhaps a jointer as well.

I've been doing some research regarding portable units- which is a dubious term, apparently- but that there are some newer offerings Dewalt and Delta, for example, with a locking cutterhead which greatly decreases snipe.

A few of the planks are slightly bowed- slightly. Should I get a jointer for the edge then saw the other edge or just use a wedge to straighten when installing?

Some of the pine planks are 12 inches wide, and 14 feet long.

Suggestions? Thanks for the opinions.

I've always wanted to get a planer and a jointer, but haven't yet. Let us know what you end up with. You might need a metal detector/wand, too, so you don't ruin the cutter heads on hidden nails.

I build decks as a side business and I've laid a few hardwood floors as well. You'd be surprised how crappy and wavy typical lumber looks off the rack (or out of the box for pre-finished hardwood). But with the right techniques, you can straighten a bowed board as you install it. Toenailing into joists at a very shallow angle is one of the ways to do it. Blocks screwed to the floor and wedges are another technique. Read as much as you can about floor installation and you will see a variety of methods to deal with this common problem.

And a typical home shop jointer is not really effective taking out a bow in 12' boards because the infeed and outfeed tables are only a couple of feet long. It is much better for shorter stock . It can be done, but it would require dead flat infeed and outfeed tables to support nearly the entire length of your stock.

Fine Homebuilding magazine has great articles about stuff like that, too. See if your library has back issues of that. They also index all of their articles, so it should not be too hard to find what you need.

These planks were already used as a floor for 20 or so years; they are flat and straight and in good shape but were finished sloppily and polyurethaned double sloppily. There are obviously some surface blemishes too, from years of dogs, high heels, etc. I don't mind the marking, but the marks look terrible with the crappy finish. I want to plane off 1/16 or 1/8 to shave the finish off rather than belt sanding for the rest of my life... 340 sq feet... and while I have them in the shop it's easier than to install and try to get it right while in place.

I do have the room to have rollers in flat position before and after the planer... outside! (do have room inside too), so I'm not worried about that so much.

I think that the boards are straight enough to install just fine using a wedge against a screwed down block. This stuff is not T&G; I'll be face nailing with Tremont cut steel nails.

My dog was sick a couple of weeks ago and barfed all over the carpet that will be removed for this project. I can't wait to get it out, but want to make sure I get value out of the floor project, so want to make it look nice.

I agree, you can take out the bow during installation. When I'm installing hardwood floors, I typically screw down a block, put a scrap piece of hardwood against the bowed piece and pry it straight with a 36" pry bar laying on the floor alongside the bowed piece.

I feel guilty denying you the reason to buy new tools, but in my opinion, sanding after installation is a better route to go. I've belt sanded a fair number of old wooden floors and 340 sq feet doesn't seem like a lot. A half day of work with a quality belt sander. I've taken off a hundred years of floor paint with a belt sander. The ones I've rented from hardwood suppliers have been better than the HD rentals. You can't imagine yourself as Norm Abraham's with a floor sander like you can with a jointer, but I think it's more practical.

Mercy killing would be permissible for the people who took the wood out to replace with laminate.

Shhhhh!

I know just enough about this to be dangerous but I agree with the above statement. Also as a person who once rented a floor sander to do oak floors, what I learned is what they rent you is not necessarily what the floor guys use. They gave me a nice expensive looking machine, but when I had trouble and my professional floor guy friend came over to help, he couldn't do much better with the machine. It had no height adjustment. Also with the disc edger he did great work and I made great gouges. And then there is the art of the floor buffer with the sanding screens... Basically you might hire a pro to do the sanding.

The best belt sander I've used had what appeared to be a motorcycle throttle on one handle. That 'throttle' controlled the pressure of the belt on the floor. It was way better than the kind of on/off control you get with HD sanders.

Sanding a floor with professional size equipment is not as easy as it looks on the home improvement shows. Getting good results is an aquired skill.

1. I would get quotes to have a professional come in and sand it after you install it.

2. If I had to finish it myself, I would check out renting the newer random orbital type floor sanders. Drum sanders can do a lot of damage quickly in inexperienced hands. (Been there, done that.)

If your flooring has straight edges and you want to edge joint it, you could always do it with a router using T&G bits. That way you'd make the installation easier at the same time.

Planing them now does sound like a good idea to avoid all of that sanding and finishing later. I hope you'll post some pictures of this project. I'd love to see it.

It is hard to get a straight edge on a very long board using just a joiner; if the board is bowed you can tack on a perfectly straight 'guide' board on the piece of flooring and the guide board up against the fence of a table saw will cut off all the waves.
It is hard to take the curve out of a wide piece of stock by just clamping, wedging and nailing it into submission. The wood will fight it's way into it's natural curve after a period of time. Get that sucker straight before nailing it down.

Before running any of that flooring through a planer consider not only hidden nails that will nick your blades but also lots of little bits of grit and pebbles that are embedded in the wood from years of walking on it. Also the heat from the planer blades will want to melt some of that varnish and it will gum up everything in the planer; drive rollers, blades etc....
I would first belt sand the surface a little just give the varnish a rough texture so the drive rollers can get a grip. Take just a little off at a time as not to build up too much heat resulting in scorched wood or the previous mentioned varnish melting. 1/32" to 1/64"
The bigger and heavier the planer the better.

I have done a lot of floors and I would recommend getting a recent book from lowe's, home depot on how to go about this project. If you start ripping up the floor you might find the wood is awfully brittle, so you may have to stop and re-evaluate your entire project and methodology.
( For years I owned a custom woodworking and cabinet shop and my Dad was a Woodshop/cabinetmaking teacher)