cowtime wrote:
Yeah, that black stuff is a bit tough to get up, but you can do it. I did with the aid of my trusty wood chisel and a sander.....All except that black stuff from way back when. Brute strength is the only thing that I found to remove that.
I'm a firm believer in elbow grease and effort in renovation, but it's only fair to say that black goo is not always successfully removed. Much depends on the time available, and the difficult-to-predict degree to which the glue has penetrated the wood, which in turn depends on how the initial glue application was applied, the nature (if any) of sealer on the floorboards, and how porous* the wood itself was.
In some settings, the goo has penetrated so far into the floorboards as to be enormously difficult to remove for less than the cost of a new floor. If you're made of money, I've heard of a reno in which old flooring was lifted, sent for a quick pass unside down through a planer, and then re-laid upside down, sanded in place, and refinished. Looked great, but that was not a cheap job.**
I stripped and sanded the flooring in the place I'm in now, hauling out a ton of nasty lino and stinky carpet. It's now wall to wall fir, except for the bathroom where there was too much water damage, so I relaid newer tile. Only one room had really nasty glues, and that made for two very unpleasant and long days with a flooring scraper on a 48 inch shaft (made for lifting lino, I think), a paint scraper and a 1" chisel. Mostly the chisel.
*Out in the great north wet, vintage 'hardwood' flooring tends to be Douglas fir, which isn't technically a hardwood at all, and is not nearly as dense as maple or oak, the default hardwoods back east.
**A similar operation is often a good idea for people who want to resurrect wooden wainscoting. If it's been there 80 or 100 years and under paint for much of the time, odds are that the lead content of the paint is high. Sanding or stripping can be unhealthy. If you doing a major reno, popping the wainscoting off and reapplying it flipped over works best. Sanding or planing the former rough side and then finishing it makes for a safer job. It'll be virgin wood with no lead added.