Stripping floorboards with solvent

[Manny]

The floorboards in my Georgian terrace have been stained with something very dark in the past. It’s almost black and quite shiny. In some rooms this stain has only been applied to the edge of the floor, obviously the person who did it had large rugs that covered the centre of the room.

In places of heavy traffic this ‘stain’ is beginning to wear down, so it hasn’t penetrated deep into the wood. The parts which have been left natural have become darkened and dirty over time.

I’d like to get the floors back to a uniform condition and colour and I really don’t want to sand them. If I use a solvent stripper will it also clean up the old unstained areas of the wood to the same degree? Or will there still be real noticeable difference between the two areas?

Cheers.

 

[dandrew]

Sounds like bituminous paint to me, it was on the living room floor in my 1856 tenement in Glasgow and surrounded what was probably once a large rug. It can be removed with solvent based stripper using wire wool and turpentine to clean up afterwards. The downside is the nasty black gunge that is created, which is a mixture of stripper and the paint. Quite how you dispose of it I'm not sure, since it will eat through any plastic container - lots of jam jars maybe, then off to the local tip if they have a hazardous waste container. I resorted to sanding in the end, but went through loads of belts as it tends to melt with the heat and then stick to the belts, eventually clogging them.

 

[Nemesis]

It could also be 'Darkalene', which used to bought in a bottle and applied - I think it possibly had shellac and colurants in.

It may be worth sending a sample to Strippers of Sudbury, see what they recommend, but I suspect it will have stained the wood and some sanding will be inevitable to remove that.

We have a similar problem in one room we have yet to tackle.

 

[AMc]

FWIW I had similar black stuff in my top bedroom. The builder had rebuilt and refloored with the reclaimed boards some of which had this 'stuff' stuck to them so there wasn't a uniform pattern. It resisted chemicals and both industrial floor sanding and orbital sanding. I gave up in the end and applied a floor paint..which crazed over the black stuff A friend of mine resorted to an angle grinder!

I very much doubt that any chemical only approach will bring both surfaces to seamless finish. Not least because the exposure to light will have affected the wood differently but mostly because I don't expect the black stuff to come off well.

I would reckon you're looking at some hard sanding as a minimum or painting/staining/sealing the floor to match the old unremovable gunk.

Sorry if that all sounds negative but I wasted a couple of days trying to get this stuff off - it would have been quicker to remove the skirting, lift and reverse the boards!

 

[Manny]

Thanks a lot for the replies. I'll guess I'll test a little bit and see what happens. If it's that much of pain I'll find out exactly what it is and try to match the rest of the floor in something similar. I quite like the shiney black look of it.

Failing that, reversing the boards isn't a bad idea, thanks!

 

[GK]

Don't bank on reversing the boards until you've lifted one or two just to check. The underside of old floorboards are often just as they came off the saw and not planed.

 

[Manny]

Sorry to resurrect this one, but the fireplace is now (almost) complete and the time has come to tackle the floor.

The stuff used on part of this floor and some other areas of the house is shiny as I've said, it's also black as your hat but you can see some of the grain in the timber showing through as a very dark brown colour in places. To me this looks like it's something that's been done a long time ago. I've taken the carpets up in some rooms and found this applied to the edge in about a 1m strip all the way around the room. The underlay just turned to dust and there's evidence of some wearing of this stuff so it's got to be pretty old, if not original?

I'm interested in this Darkalene that you mentioned Nemesis, from the little I've been able to gather about this is sounds like it might be the stuff. Could you please expand a bit?

I'll try to get a picture together today to make things a little clearer. Perhaps someone can advise on something that may be a close match for it. I know very little about wax/varnish/oil etc.

Thanks!

 

[Lime]

I’d like to get the floors back to a uniform condition and colour and I really don’t want to sand them. If I use a solvent stripper will it also clean up the old unstained areas of the wood to the same degree? Or will there still be real noticeable difference between the two areas?

I doubt that you will ever get a uniform colour across the floor as too much time has passed since the black was applied.
If, as Nemesis suggests, it is a shellac based paint you should be able to remove it with methylated spirits.
Use the meths on a cloth wad changing the cloth surface as it gets dirty.