Looking for help

[Brookster]

I have about 20m2 of oak floor on the surface it's in pretty good nick.
My problem is it was glued down and much of the stuff is covered in glue, now I need to lay down some sort of floor in my attic and given the lockdown I have alot of time on my hands and I'm wondering how I can remove this glue?
I had thought about using a sliding mitre saw to cut it off but whilst I have a ton of time on my hands this really would take forever and I'd probably have RSI.
Anyone have any ideas pretty please? I'm not working because of the lockdown & really want to use this wood it'll save me a fortune.
------EDIT------
Thanks so much for your help so far, Several things I should have said and forgot:

1) The glue is about 7 - 10mm and hard set, basically they glued the flooring to the concrete floor.
2) It's pretty hard I tried a couple of solvents and it was resistant. Some worked but I'd need gallons of the stuff hence why I thought a mechanical approach might be better.

Which is also why I'd thought of a sliding mitre that stopped at the level of where the glue meets the wood. The idea of a planer thicknesser sounds pretty good, I'd thought about it but never used one and wasn't sure how long the blades last. I suspect on a toughness scale the glue is going to be like Jarrah I suspect.

 

[adrspach]

How thick is the glue? Otherwise I am thinking of good scraper in one of those holders could do the job. You don't have to do it all at once to avoid RSI.

 

[Droogs]

a cheap gumtree thicknesser

 

[MikeG.]

If the glue is hard set, rather than tacky, then planing it off would be my approach. Now, I have a planer thicknesser, so it wouldn't be much of a job to clean them all up, but if you don't have one you have only 2 issues: time, and the length of your bench. If the boards are longer than your bench then you are going to have to get creative. If you had an electric hand-held plane, then buzzing the worst off with that first would also work, but they can make an awful mess of your wood very quickly, so approach this with caution, and be prepared to clean up with a hand plane or belt sander afterwards.

 

[sunnybob]

bear in mind this is one of those areas where I have absolutely no experience ( i know, one of many :roll: )

If you are going to glue the boards down again, why do you need to carefully remove all the glue that no one is ever going to see?
Why not use the coarsest sandpaper you can get (40 grit) sand off all the highs, and just stick them down again?

 

[Brookster]

Thanks
So I won't glue them, I'm going to put them down in my attic on the beams. But the glue is patchy, if it's all been even I'd have just laid it but sadly it's way to patchy for that. :-(

 

[Brookster]

Thanks Mike, I added more detail to the original question as well.

Max length of a board is 4 or 5 foot & glue depth 7 - 10mm so suspect I'd need many passes but it sounds like an idea.
The only problem I see is heat generation as that might make the glue tacky, how easy is it to change blades on a planner thicknesser this glue is pretty hard?

 

[MikeG.]

Planer thicknesser blades are a real fiddle to change. It can take 20 minutes plus.

 

[user22161]

Sounds like it may be a job for an oscillating multi tool, just scrape off where joists are located.

 

[peter-harrison]

In the days before thicknessers, when people were laying floorboards on joists, the floorboards were generally quite variable in thickness. They got around this by chiselling shallow channels on the undersides of the thicker boards, just where the joists were. In this way they could get away with removing much less timber.
You could do the same with your chop saw- just clean off the glue in 3” wide strips at the same centres as your joists.

 

[RogerS]

Lateral thinking and not sure how easy to do. Or how good your ceilings are !

Don't bother taking any glue off. Just fix them down. Then use a floor sander to level the top. Or a rotary sander like a Mirka Ceros.

 

[Ttrees]

Looks like it might be worth trying a Kutzall disc or cheaper alternative.
Maybe even a regular grinding disc might be worth a shot?
No doubt a flap disc would do the job, but it would be costly, maybe reasonable for the last pass though.
Tom

 

[RogerS]

Thinking about it some more. Buy a metal detector to check no nails or screws left in. Buy a cheap and I mean cheap thicknesser. Run the boards through. Then stick it on eBay but say that it needs new blades !

 

[Brookster]

bear in mind this is one of those areas where I have absolutely no experience ( i know, one of many :roll: )

If you are going to glue the boards down again, why do you need to carefully remove all the glue that no one is ever going to see?
Why not use the coarsest sandpaper you can get (40 grit) sand off all the highs, and just stick them down again?

The problem is that some boards have no glue some boards are all glue and some boards have patches of glue.

I offered to take the floor up at which point I was going to do it carefully and I'd have made sure the glue stayed on.

I've had some great suggestions, if I had a supply of liquid nitrogen I'd have used that on the glue and smashed it off, but that wouldn't be cheap

I really like the idea of a thicknesser though
Universal tool sounds like an idea as well.

I shall investigate further, thanks so far, all I need now is the good weather to come back.

 

[Woodchips2]

An oscillating multi tool with a scraper to remove just the areas where the boards touch the joists is an easy method and you then have the tool to do a range of tasks that take hours with other tools. The cheap ones from Aldi and Lidl work well and come with a three year guarantee for around £30.
Regards Keith

 

[sunnybob]

The multitool would do the job easier than most. Like this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPPv41uiPtM

I have recently used mine with the wood saw blade for the first time (after years of just using it as a sander) and am very impressed.

 

[RogerS]

a cheap gumtree thicknesser

This really is THE simplest and easiest way to do this. Messing about with a multitool is pointless and an utter waste of time. He'll have to measure every length and line that up with the joists. Then grind away with the multi-tool (and those blades don't last long) to some indeterminate depth. And it is so.o.o.o.o slow. Oak ? Seasoned oak ? :shock:

Feeding the stuff through a thicknesser is so simple. OK ...get a set of spare so you're not hanging around waiting for replacements to come if need be.

 

[adrspach]

Wow that is thick and my suggestion of scraper is useless.
I will have another suggestion which is a bit out of box but cost nothing. In past I was given very old door and accidentally I left it leaning against a wall in full sun. It was caked in different paints and varnishes. In few hours the sun and heat from it loosened all of that much nearly to clean wood. Otherwise it looks like the already recommended thicknesser is the way forward.

 

[profchris]

Wow that is thick and my suggestion of scraper is useless.
I will have another suggestion which is a bit out of box but cost nothing. In past I was given very old door and accidentally I left it leaning against a wall in full sun. It was caked in different paints and varnishes. In few hours the sun and heat from it loosened all of that much nearly to clean wood. Otherwise it looks like the already recommended thicknesser is the way forward.

Heat (a heat gun means you can do this on a cloudy day) and what Stanley calls a filling knife (handle, fan-shaped blade, push it away from you) might shift most of the glue. If it softens with heat, which most (but not all) glues do.

 

[user22161]

Feeding the stuff through a thicknesser is so simple. OK ...get a set of spare so you're not hanging around waiting for replacements to come if need be.

It seems several are suggesting he goes out and buys a thicknesser then runs adhesive and most likely some small bits of embedded concrete through it. I wonder how many would allow him to do a trial on their PT? My guess would be NO WAY!