Repairing wood floor - removing glue, sand or scrape

[jonwestuk]

So some previous owner of my house decided to put a cheap pine floor over a perfectly nice real Marbau 5 finger parquet. Instead of floating it, they glued it. I now want to restore the original floor. Having pulled the old floor and salvaged some spare fingers from under the stairs I am preparing to sand.

The issue is the glue. There is a thick layer of glue over the top, not so thick that you cant see the wood, but a decent layer. I have two schools of thought, but am open to other options:

1. Use the heat gun to scrape the glue off as much as possible. Are there any tips for this, as the glue gets very tacky and is then difficult to remove from my scraper.

2. Get the belt sander, buy lots and lots of paper, and then use the sander to pull the glue off. I imagine I will go through a fair few belts, but this would likely be faster.

3. Other options?

Has anyone had this challenge, what would you do? The space is a 2m x 8m corridor. Its not massive, but by my reckoning, at the speed I am going it will take about 20hrs. Also, I cant get all the glue up, so I know the sander is going to have to do some of the work.

 

[foxhole]

What type of adhesive has been used.?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Have you tried a variety of solvents on the glue to see if you can budge it? Meths, paraffin, petroleum, white spirits, cellulose thinners and ketones (Evo-Stik solvent or Hammerite solvent) spring to mind. Be EXTREMELY careful with any of these, though, they can be highly dangerous if abused.

 

[jonwestuk]

What type of adhesive has been used.?

No idea, I tried white spirit and it seemed to slightly reduce the tackiness, but not much else.

 

[jonwestuk]

Have you tried a variety of solvents on the glue to see if you can budge it? Meths, paraffin, petroleum, white spirits, cellulose thinners and ketones (Evo-Stik solvent or Hammerite solvent) spring to mind. Be EXTREMELY careful with any of these, though, they can be highly dangerous if abused.

Thanks for the suggestion, I have not tried lots of chemicals. One slight issue is that my wife may be pregnant, I am not keen on filling the place with chemicals in the early stages of pregnancy, not the late ones either.

I had a bit more luck scraping using my Fein multi tool. Its still going to be a big job!

 

[jonwestuk]

So I have been playing and have found what I think is the best (non-chemical) approach. That is using my oscillating multi-tool with a rigid blade seems to cut through the stuff really quickly. It is still going to be a chore, but it seems to be an optimal solution.