Bitumen on floorboards

[dirtdawg]

I would like some information on removing bitumen from my floorboards.
I have yet to sand the boards and have several bands of bitumen round the edge of my living room.
It is about 1mm thick at it\\\'s worse and not sticky.
I tried a scraper but while it worked, it was chipping the wood off the boards.
Your helpful advice will be appreciated.

 

[JRP]

I had the same problem very recently and simply had to sand the floorboards down using a drum sander and an edging sander. The edging sander did most of the work and after trial and error the best method was to make fairly rapid sweeps with the sander otherwise the bitumen melts with the heat building up and stains the floor, sticking to the sanding disk as well. The bitumen had also soaked into the wood to about 2mm so any attempt I made to remove it using heat or a removal medium simply spread it. Not much help if you didn't want to flatten the boards and lose their character I'll admit.

 

[mngray]

You may find this thread under General DIY helpful:


Mark